Irish families, and a storm
The parish begins with settlers, not with a building.
Michael and Bridget Meehan arrived in 1835 and were the first European settlers in the area. Michael Yore and his wife Roseanna followed in 1838, after a storm on Lake Michigan pushed their ship past Milwaukee and put them ashore.
In 1839 Father John Guegnin, a French missionary, began holding services in the Yore family home. That is where this parish starts.
In 1840, after a shipwreck killed a number of Irish sailors, Michael and Roseanna Yore and Lawrence Fagan gave land along Telegraph Road for a burial ground. They named it St. Patrick Cemetery.
Four churches
Twice the building was struck by lightning and lost. Twice it was rebuilt.
1844. A log cabin church, forty feet by thirty, went up near the cemetery. It was called St. Michael’s, for Michael Yore.
1849. The parish was formally founded. In 1853 the cornerstone of a brick church was laid at what is now Route 60 and Waukegan Road, finished in 1855 at a cost of $14,000.
1895. Lightning destroyed it. The replacement was struck and destroyed again in 1908.
1910. A new church rose at Everett and Waukegan, designed by the architect Henry Lord Gay and dedicated by Archbishop James Quigley on October 16. It is the Old Church, and couples still ask to be married in it.
1998. The current church was dedicated by Cardinal Francis George on March 22.
- Founded
- 1849
- The Old Church
- 1910Henry Lord Gay, architect
- The New Church
- 1998Dedicated by Cardinal George
What is still here
The parish serves about 1,780 families across thirty wooded acres on Waukegan Road.
The stained glass, restored in 2016, was given by the founding families. A Parish Center was added in 1968 and the historic church was extensively renovated in 1986.
The Church of St. Mary in east Lake Forest was built in 1868 by Reverend James McGovern. Our youth still meet with theirs, one Sunday a month at each parish.
