William Strowhouer's Sweater

     At the Wednesday Night Jug at Thanksgiving 2010, I ran into Chip (Charles J.) Strowhouer '71.  I was telling him about the Villiger Archives program, and he offered to donate some treasures from his dad, William J. Strowhouer '40: a jacket, a sweater, and a hat.  Bill grew up in Drexel Hill and attended St. Andrew's School before arriving at the Prep in September 1936, where he was active in Sodality, intramurals, and track.  On the track team, Bill was a reliable sprinter, and placed consistently in the 100 and 220 yard dashes.  I have included scans of two pages from the 1940 Chronicle: his senior portrait and the track team's page on which Bill appears twice.  The third image is Bill's varsity sweater with his track chenille.  Hard to believe that this sweater is over 70 years old!  The care with which Bill preserved his sweater is just one of the ways he showed his fondness for his time at St. Joe's.  He would send three sons to his dear alma mater: William '65, Chip '71, and Theodore '73.  Chip considered his time at the Prep to be the best experience of his life, so he sent his son Jon (Charles Jonathan) as a member of the Class of 2002.
     Chip also sent along his dad's Prep warm-up jacket, and the PREP bucket hat you see in the photo with his sweater.  The sweater and hat are currently displayed in the archive case in the 'link' (see photo) where hundreds pass to and from Jesuit Hall every day.  And I can't tell you how many students have asked about reproducing Bill's hat and selling them in the Spirit Shop!    
     If you have any vintage Prep items that you would like to donate to the permanent collection of the Villiger Archives, please get in touch.  And if you find yourself near 17th and Girard and want to see some of the items from our school's grand history, please stop by.

UPDATE: Painting of Ignatius

At the end of October 2011, we posted an entry with photos and a request for information about a painting that we thought depicted St. Ignatius of Loyola.  We are grateful for the following opinion from a Spanish art expert with connections to Prep teacher Jaime Ball: "Well, I'm still not positive if it's New World or Spanish, but I've come to the conclusion that it is not a painting of St. Ignatius Loyola, but instead an image of the Virgin and Child Appearing to St. Philip Neri by Guido Reni."

The image of the Reni portrait of St. Philip Neri, along with the images of the painting in our collection, are included here.  Any light that you might be able to shed on this mystery would be greatly appreciated.

Unidentified painting in the Villiger Archives

Guido Reni (1575-1642)'s portrait of St. Philip Neri

Dedication Day at the Gesu - this Friday

The History Club and the Villiger Society of St. Joseph’s Preparatory School Present

Dedication Day 2011

Celebrating the 123^rd Anniversary of the Dedication of the Church of the Gesu

December 2, 1888 - December 2, 2011

The students, faculty and almuni of St. Joseph's Prep will be participating a major clean-up of the Church of the Gesu, Friday afternoon from 3-4 p.m.  Pizza will be provided to those who clean!

Please e-mail us if you would like to participate.

Fr. Villiger Found in a Box in Jesuit Hall!

I found this lithograph of Rev. Burchard Villiger, S.J., in the fall of 2010 folded up in a shoe box in the archive storage room in Jesuit Hall.  Sometimes an old print is trimmed to fit an existing frame, thereby saving the expense of having a larger frame made.  Unfortunately, this original 19^th century print has suffered such a fate, having been reduced to 12” x 14.5”.  Typically, a lithograph such as this would have a title, the name of the artist, and the name and location of the lithographer.  This vital identifying information is often lost when a print is trimmed, and as you can see in the photo, our lithograph retains only the partial name and address of the lithographer: FASY, 1225 No. 17^th St. Phila., Pa.  The lithographer worked out of a building located near the southeast corner of 17^th and Stiles, directly across 17^th St. from the current Prep. 

So, how old is this image?  And what occasion prompted its creation?  An untrimmed specimen would likely answer these questions, so my search is on for the “Holy Grail” of Villiger fans like me.  I have not seen this image of Villiger before, so perhaps it was made from a lost photograph.  His hair and facial features lead me to guess that this dates from the 1870s.  Villiger was known as a prodigious fundraiser.  Perhaps the print was created as a premium for those who donated to the construction of the Church of the Gesu begun in October 1879.  Or maybe it was issued to celebrate Villiger’s Golden Jubilee as a Jesuit, which was commemorated by the very first Mass in the new church on 4 October 1888.  It might also have been commissioned for the dedication of the church on 2 December 1888. 

Do you have any ideas?  Have you ever seen this image?  Do you know the lithograph, or have access to an untrimmed example?  Please pass along any leads that might help us solve this mystery.

Interested in more information about lithographs?  The following link from the Philadelphia Print Shop on Germantown Avenue in Chestnut Hill contains descriptions of various printing processes: 

http://www.philaprintshop.com/whataprt.html

You can also see what’s for sale at the shop.  The owner, Don Cresswell, is a map and print expert who occasionally appears on Antiques Road Show, and is the father of Robert Cresswell of the Class of 1992.       

Silver medal discovered from the 1850's

     This medal, awarded to St. Joseph’s student James W. Newlin in 1855, is a very rare find from some of the earliest days of Jesuit education in Philadelphia.  Although the opening of the Prep is traditionally set at 1851 – the year that the college began under the control of Fr. Felix Barbelin, SJ – it seems reasonable to believe that boys of high school age took courses at “Old” Saint Joseph’s Church in Willings Alley long before that date.  In fact, in his history of Saint Joseph’s Prep, Fr. James J. Gormley, S.J., notes that Jesuit education started as early as 1781 and turned into a high school between 1800 and 1833.  In the seminal work of an earlier Jesuit – “Jesuit Education in Philadelphia: Saint Joseph’s College 1851-1926” by Francis X. Talbot – it is also stated that a school had been constructed by the Jesuits (at the cost of £440, 15s.) in 1781.  Whatever the case may be, the Prep is really older than 1851.

     Although we at the Villiger Archives know very little about this medal, we can assume that it was presented at an end-of-school year assembly, similar to the one mentioned by Gormley on July 11, 1852.  Those alumni of Saint Joseph’s University who own David Contosta’ excellent history of the University should also note that a very similar medal is displayed on page 29.  Both medals are silver, and they are dated one year apart from each other.

     This medal is particularly important for a number of reasons.  Information about the Prep’s and the University’s earliest students is often difficult to come across, so knowing that there was a James W. Newlin at St. Joseph’s who received this medal is significant in and of itself.  Additionally, this may be one of only two surviving medals – (the other one is displayed in Contosta’s book).  Perhaps most significantly, it is another artifact from an increasingly distant time in our combined institutional histories.  It is hard to imagine being a Catholic student in the Philadelphia of the 1850’s, as James W. Newlin must have lived during the infamous riots of 1844, in a place and time decidedly distant from our own understanding.

Painting found, information needed!

     

     In October of 2009, while searching a storage area on the 4^th floor of Villiger Hall (the name students selected for the 1968 post-fire Prep building, and, yes, there is a partial 4^thfloor!), I came across the painting of St. Ignatius of Loyola pictured here.  No one seems to know anything about this 25” x 19” work, and I could find no artist’s signature or date.  My hunch is that this is a European work from the late 18th century. 

     Jaime Ball, one of the art teachers at the Prep, has a friend on the staff of the Philadelphia Museum of Art who has graciously volunteered to take a look at it, give an assessment of the age and origin, and make recommendations for proper conservation. 

     If you have any ideas or information, please get in touch.

Prep Crushes Roman! ... 92 years later

     This hand-drawn poster promotes a basketball game played on 25 January 1919 between St. Joe’s Prep and Catholic High, now known as Roman Catholic.  The artist was senior Clem McGovern of the Class of 1919.  As the story goes, after the Prep defeated the Cahillites by a score of 26 to 20, Clem gave the poster to Charles Laughlin, captain of the basketball team and a classmate of McGovern.

     Charlie eventually gave the poster to his daughter Betty, who married Joe Flynn of the Class of 1950.  The Flynns enjoyed the poster for many years, then donated it to the Villiger Archives at Joe’s 60^th reunion in the Fall of 2010.  The poster now hangs proudly in the second floor hallway of Jesuit Hall in a period frame.

     Beside the poster hangs a framed photo of the 1918-1919 squad.  Under the direction of Coach John Donoghue, the team was crowned the Catholic City Champions (the Philadelphia Catholic League did not yet exist) with a record of 21 and 2, and Charlie Laughlin was Philadelphia’s 1919 Free Throw Champ.

Home again: You can see these two great artifacts on display on the second floor of Jesuit Hall.