Cathedral talk on the history of the diocese and Cathedral Church
by Father Joseph Doogan

I am a native Seattleite having been born and raised in the block south of Providence Hospital. Our home parish was the Immaculate at the corner of 18th and Marion. Before I was born and until 1929 it was in the care of the Jesuit Fathers and in 1929 it was turned over to the diocese and the first diocesan priest to be pastor was Monsignor Theodore M. Ryan, the first native Seattleite to be ordained a priest IN 1914 and a relative of Father Michael Ryan of the Cathedral. Monsignor Ryan is the source of much of the information which I will hand along to you because Monsignor Ryan was secretary and chancellor to Bishop Edward J. O'Dea, third bishop of the diocese and the builder of your Cathedral. I am indebted as well to my brother, Monsignor John P. Doogan, to whom reference is made in Father Schoenberg's book, History of the Catholic Church in the Pacific Northwest. Monsignor Ryan's father was a contractor and built the Knights of Columbus hall over on Harvard and Union as well as the Immaculate School and the priest's house at the Immaculate.

At the outset I'd like to tell you a little about the history of the Catholic Church in the Pacific Northwest. Most people think that that history began with the coming of the first missionaries to Fort Vancouver, Washington Territory back in 1838. However, I think that you should be aware of what we call the "Spanish presence" that goes back long before the coming of the missionaries from French Canada.

We know that the Spanish explored this part of the country in the 1700's coming out of California where they were well established. Where do you think some of those names like Juan de Fuca, San Juan Islands, Camano, Guemes Island, Fidalgo Island, Haro Straits, Padilla Bay and others came from? We know that the Spanish came here exploring from California and wherever the Spanish galleons went there was always a Padre on board to take of the spiritual needs of the soldiers and sailors. We know that a Spanish ship under the command of Captain Quadra anchored off of Destruction Island off our coast and sent people ashore for water and supplies and they were all killed by the native Americans. We know as well that the Spanish erected a cross at Neah Bay. We know as well that at one time Mt. Olympus was called the Grande Mountain of St. Rosalie and it was the English explorers who came later who changed all of that. We know as well that Mt. Baker had another name given to it by the Spanish - La Grande Montana del Carmelo (the Great Mountain of Carmel, a reference to Elijah of the Old Testament and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel). This was also changed by later English explorers. So we can't ignore the Spanish presence and their Catholicity and their bringing of the faith originally into this part of the country.

Going to a later period in history we are aware that the Hudson's Bay Company (which is still in existence under the name of La Baie) came into this part of the country with trappers and courier de bois, most of whom were Catholic French Canadians. They operated out of Vancouver, Washington and eventually settled in retirement at Cowlitz prairie in Washington and the Willamette Valley in Oregon. There was also a rival American Fur trading company up around what we know today as Astoria, Oregon.

As time went on, many of the French Canadian trappers intermarried with the natives and wanted their marriages validated and their children baptized. Overtures were made to many places so as to get priests to come into this part of the country - to St. Louis, for example, where there were Jesuits who had gone into the Rocky Mountain missions (Father Pierre de Smet, for example), and to French Canada and even to Rome but without any results.

Eventually though, two missionaries were assigned to the far west by their bishop in Montreal. One of these men was Francis Norbert Blanchet, the other was a man by the name of August Demers. They came from what is known as the Trois Rivierie area of French Canada. They came across Canada (Canada's highway number 1 was not in existence at that time) walking and canoeing all the way. They entered the United States and began the trip down the Columbia river arriving at Fort Vancouver on November 24th of 1838.When we were in the Seminary in 1938 they had a pageant down in Vancouver depicting the arrival of the missionaries and Bishop Gill former pastor here at the Cathedral and Father Robbins, an Oblate pastor of St. Benedict's took the place of the two missionaries.

As time went on, the priests divided up the area, Blanchet taking south of the Columbia river and Demers taking north of the Columbia including Vancouver Island. We know that at a later date Father Demers said Mass in Henry L. Yesler's cookhouse which was located a the foot of what we know today as Yesler Way. History tells us that one of the founders of Seattle, a non-Catholic and one of the Denny family, decorated the altar for the Mass.

Eventually Father Blanchet found his way to Oregon City which at that time was rather populous. It was becoming difficult to take care of the needs of the growing area so Rome decided to do something about it. In 1846 they established the Diocese of Walla Walla, evidently a place that the people loved so much that they named it twice. The man named to be the Bishop of this new diocese was Augustine Magloire Alexandre Blanchet, brother of the original pioneer priest and the one after whom Bishop Blanchet High School is named. That is important because this can be confusing. Our Bishop, the one after whom Blanchet High School is named, was A.M.A. Blanchet. He had been a canon of the cathedral in Montreal at the time of his appointment and when he began the journey west he made quite a trip of it. First of all, he went to Europe seeking money and priests for his new diocese. The Superior General of the Oblate Fathers, Father de Massenaude, now a saint, gave him two students whom the Bishop later ordained to the priesthood. When he came back and began the journey to his new diocese he went through Eastern Canada and from there down into the United States eventually getting to Philadelphia and then moving on down to the jumping off place which was below St. Louis.

When I was going to school in Ottawa, Canada, at St. Paul's University, I found that they had a magnificent library which I used to peruse in the morning before class began. One day I came across a paper back volume which was the Diary of Bishop Blanchet in his journey on the Oregon Trail to Walla Walla. Here is a copy of that volume which you may want to look at. It is a most interesting volume.

The bishop and his party came over the oregon trail and eventually found their way into Walla Walla. Unfortunately, not too long after their arrival the Whitman Massacre took place on November 29, 1847. Marcus Whitman, if you remember, was a Protestant missionary. He and his family were put to death by the indians. There was a time when the Catholic missionaries were accused of fomenting this disaster but that was later cleared up. Dr. H.N. Spalding was another Protestant missionary in the area but he was not there when the massacre took place and Father Broulette took it upon himself to ride out and stop Spalding and tell him what had happened. He saved Spalding's life and did not really get any thanks for it but rather accusations.

Incidentally, the State of Washington has probably one of the most severe state constitutions regarding the separation of church and state. It isn't inimical but just rigid and unbending about keeping the two areas separate. Every state in the union is allowed to have two statues in what is called Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C. Strangely enough, the State of Washington with its strict standing with regard to the separation of church and state, has two religious figures representing it in Statuary Hall in Washington, the statue of Mother Joseph of Providence of the Sisters of Providence and Marcus Whitman. Now figure that one out.

Because of the Whitman Massacre, the military would not allow Bishop Blanchet to take possession of his diocese so he went down to the Umatilla reservation in Oregon and worked there for a while, eventually moving on to the Dalles. He tried to get back to Walla Walla on one occasion but the military would still not let him function. He eventually made it to Vancouver, Washington Territory, and set up business there. In 1850 Rome established the Diocese of Nesqually which was a Fort between Tacoma and Olympia. Strangely enough the diocese was never located there. At the same time, Rome made Oregon City an Archdiocese - eventually to be established in Portland. Most people are not aware that the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon is the second oldest Archdiocese in the United States, second only to Baltimore. Originally it was only Baltimore as the Primatial See in the United States and that reached all the way across the country. What happened at the same time was the creation of Nesqually as a diocese and Rome had the idea that they were going to make dioceses wherever there was a fort - Fort Colville, Fort Spokane etc. It wasn't until 1853 that the diocese of Walla Walla was done away with.

As the Bishop of Nesqually, Bishop Blanchet worked tirelessly for the good of the people under his care. In his old age he antagonized the Oblate Fathers who withdrew to Canada. They came back later to take St. Benedict's Parish in Seattle and Bishop George, now the Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago, became the Bishop of Yakima. When Bishop Blanchet finally retired he was taken care of by the great Mother Joseph. He had been responsible for her coming to the Northwest. Originally a group of Providence Sisters had come out here and they ended up in Chile. The second time around Bishop Blanchet went back to Montreal and made sure that the Sisters got here because he accompanied them. The Sisters of Providence came to the diocese back in 1856.

The diocese and archdiocese has had a total of eight bishops and archbishops - Bishops Blanchet, Junger, O'Dea and Shaughnessy, Archbishops Connolly, Hunthausen, Murphy and Brunett. I might mention that I don't have many claims to fame but when I was director of cemeteries, a job I held for some twenty-three years, I was instructed by Archbishop Connolly to remove Bishops Blanchet and Junger from St. James Church, Vancouver, Washington, and Bishops O'Dea and Shaughnessy from Calvary Cemetery, Seattle, to the recently constructed mausoleum at Holyrood Cemetery. This caused no end of comment in Vancouver, Washington and the claim was made that all of this was done in the dead of night. I can assure you that it was not. It was done in broad daylight and in the case of the Vancouver removals, the men at the post office across the street were watching the whole thing. I have vowed to myself that if I see one more accusation that it was done in the dead of night, I am going into print to refute that. It might be interesting for you to know that I am the only person who has seen all the bishops of Seattle in one form or another. When we opened Bishop Blanchet's casket he was perfectly preserved. I don't know what the circumstances were which brought that about - whether conditions of the burial, the vault or mausoleum in which he was buried. It was not the same for Bishop Junger. They certainly could have done a better job of entombing these two men because when we went down to their tombs which were under the sanctuary floor at St. James Church in Vancouver, Washington, there were four crypts, two of them occupied with the names scrawled in pencil on plaster on the two occupied crypts - A.M.A. Blanchet and Aegidius Junger. I might also mention that the pastor of St. James at that time was an excitable Irishman by the name of Father Bob Dillon. I made up my mind that every hour I was going to go over to the rectory and let him know what we were doing. Each time that I would report in to him, all he could say was: "It's going to be like King Tut's tomb - cursed, cursed, cursed." Sic gloria transit mundi.

I would like to skip over some of the bishops - Bishop Junger, for one, and he is used to that because although we have places dedicated to Bishop Blanchet and Bishop O'Dea and Archbishops Connoly, Hunthausen and Murphy, there is nothing to recall Bishops Junger and Shaughnessy.

Let's go back to Bishop Edward John O'Dea, the third Bishop of Nesqually and the first Bishop of Seattle, the one who built our cathedral and a man who was a great visionary. He saw things that other people did not see and he made them happen. He was the one who brought the seat of the diocese from Nesqually/Vancouver to Seattle in 1903.

The O'Dea family had their origins in Massachusetts and before that in holy Ireland. Bishop O'Dea's parents decided to leave Massachusetts and went from there to San Francisco where Mr. O'Dea opened a tailor shop. They later decided to move to Portland, Oregon and it was there that Eddie O'Dea came under the influence of the Sisters of the Holy Names. He was one of their star students and later when he decided to study for the priesthood, it would be at the Grande Seminar in Montreal, Canada, a seminary conducted by the Sulpician Fathers who had been founded by a man by the name of Jean Jacques Olier for the specific purpose of training young men for the priesthood. Before he left Portland, Edward O'Dea was entrusted by his pastor, Father Fierens, with a sackful of nickels. The pastor wanted to get this coin contribution out of Portland so that people could be more generous with paper money. He didn't want those nickels back in Portland.

Edward O'Dea was eventually ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Oregon City, later to become Portland. He served as an assistant in several places and when Bishop Junger, the second bishop of the Diocese of Nesqually died, Edward O'Dea's name was mentioned as a successor along with the name of Father Peter B. York, a San Francisco priest of many talents and also Father Peter Hylebos, pastor of one of the parishes in Tacoma. (Today we have Hylebos Waterway in Tacoma and Hylebos Creek runs through the south end Catholic Cemetery). It has to be said that when Rome chose Edward O'Dea to be the new bishop of Nesqually, many of the priests were not happy about the choice in that Bishop O'Dea was very young and he was not "one of them" in the sense that they had come from Holland and Belgium with a few from Ireland and some of them had come from well-to-do families. As time went on they became impressed by the way Bishop O'Dea handled himself and especially with the way he dealt with the debt that had been contracted in the building of St. James Church in Vancouver, Washington Territory, and which had been considered the cathedral.

Bishop O'Dea traveled the length and breadth of his diocese and you have to remember that that was done by walking, canoe, on horseback and by boat. It was not an easy task because at that time the diocese covered the whole State of Washington or the territory because Washington did not become a state until 1889.

As time went on, being the visionary that he was, Bishop O'Dea came to the conclusion that Seattle was where the action was and that was going to be the focus of things that were going on. He petitioned Rome to change the seat of the diocese from Nesqually to Seattle but didn't get an answer from Rome so he did it on his own and was finally able to announce the fact that it had been done at the dedication of his cathedral in 1907.

Bishop O'Dea had moved to Seattle in 1903 and took up residence in a house over here on Terry Avenue, a site now occupied by the Frye Art Museum. At that time the priest who could have had the name of Reverend Mr. Seattle was a man by the name of Francis X. Prefontaine. He had originally come from French Canada and had worked in places like Port Townsend and Steilacoom. He didn't get along with other priests who were sent to assist him and usually got rid of them. He finally ended up in Seattle and for a period of time was the only priest here. He built a church at 3rd and Washington which eventually had to be torn down because that's where the railroad depots and the railroad tunnel were built. He then moved up to 5th and Jefferson and had a church there called Our Lady of Good Help. He functioned out of there.

Father Prefontaine was part of a card playing circle, one of whose members at one time was the mayor of Seattle. The mayor's wife put up with the card players but when she died and the mayor remarried, the new wife threw the card players out of the house. When the second wife died, Father Prefontaine insisted that Bishop O'Dea be present and give the sermon which he did extolling the virtues of the first wife.

Bishop O'Dea decided that he would build a cathedral and purchased the land on which these buildings rest today for the sum of $52,000. There was an interesting thing that happened in connection with this. A group of men from Spokane showed up and wasted no time in urging the bishop to select their city as the seat of the diocese. They offered to build a cathedral for the bishop if the bishop would choose their city. Bishop O'Dea saw Spokane as a distant possibility but Seattle was proximate. The Spokane people turned their efforts toward building an impressive church for themselves. It is now Our Lady of Lourdes Cathedral, Cathedral church of the Diocese of Spokane. One of the gentlemen from spokane, a Mr. Charles Sweeney, was so impressed with Bishop O'Dea's honesty and clarity of vision that when the time came to build the Seattle cathedral, he made a very substantial contribution of $20,000.

Acknowledging the fact that Seattle was fast becoming a metropolis and the hub of his far-flung diocese, Bishop O'Dea moved the seat of the diocese from Vancouver to Seattle asking that Rome allow it. He didn't hear from Rome so he did it on his own anyway as was already mentioned. At the time there were only three Catholic churches in Seattle, Our Lady of Good Help at 5th and Jefferson, Sacred Heart parish on Denny Hill and the Immaculate on the grounds of what we know today as Seattle University. One of them, Our Lady of Good Help at the corner of 5th and Jefferson, was founded by Father F. X. Prefontaine, Seattle's pioneer priest. Bishop O'Dea made this church his pro-cathedral until a suitable cathedral could be built, something he wasted no time in bringing about, purchasing almost at once the piece of property we are presently on, a full city block on Seattle's First Hill. In the meantime they built a little chapel on this site where the cathedral school is located presently and called it St. Edward's Chapel.

The day after he purchased this property, a donor handed the Bishop a check for $52,000 to cover the full cost of the property. Bishop O'Dea, in concert with Seattle's Catholic business leaders, formed the cathedral's building committee and began the process of raising money. The committee was made up of men like George Donworth, a lawyer, J.A. Baillargeon, in the banking business, J.D. Farrell, a lumberman, J.P. Agnew, William Pigott whose family is still prominent in the Seattle business circles, owning Paccar, Kenworth motors and other businesses, John P. Agen and Daniel Kelliher, at one time attorney for the diocese and a neighbor of Bishop O'Dea, his home being next to that of Bishop O'Dea over on Spring St Street and now the site of Kelliher House, a condo building.

The committee also chose an architectural firm, the prestigious New York firm of Heins and Lafarge, best known for having designed the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City and the Albany State House.

Some people thought that the building site was too far out of town but the crowd of some 5000 people for the blessing and laying of the cornerstone changed their minds. That group made up approximately one fifth of Seattle's Catholic population.

There were some people who believed that the cathedral was too big, beyond the "practical" needs of Seattle's 35,000 Catholics. The strong local financial response , however, indicated that the Bishop's vision was actually shared by many. A cathedral fair was held in 1902 and a second one in 1906 raised nearly $40,000 for the cathedral and the enormous crowds of 5000 people participated in the laying of the cornerstone in 1905 and in the cathedral's dedication in 1907. These fairs were not penny ante operations but were held at the Seattle Armory which at that time was located at 3rd and Union. Bishop O'Dea was the only one who could be heard in the cathedral in its beginnings as he himself was a great orator.

Due to the extensive cost of building this large structure, funds for extensive interior decoration were limited. Plans for the future included bringing in Italian artists to paint frescoes on the interior walls. The Seattle P.I. reported on December 22, 1907 that "the present interior finish is a temporary scheme to last until the final systems of decoration can be carried out in pure Italian Renaissance style." That plan was not destined to be realized. The first thing that got in its way was a great catastrophe in the winter of 1916, February of that year be exact.

On Wednesday afternoon, the second of February, less than nine years after the cathedral's splendid dedication, it began to snow and before it was through, Seattle had its worst snowfall in 23 years which piled up 15 tons of snow on the cathedral's dome. At 3:15 P.M. on that afternoon the entire central portion of the roof plunged to the cathedral floor driving debris many feet into the earth. The air compression created by the collapse of the dome blew out many of the cathedral's windows and even picked up some of the giant pews and threw them at the back wall. Miraculously no one was injured in a disaster that left a fifty foot hole in the roof. You can see the debris created in the slide picture.

There's a famous story connected with this which I pass along to you. There are probably different versions of the story but, knowing the priest involved, I'm sure it is true. Anyway, once the dome caved in a familiar sight was gone from the Seattle skyline. The version I heard had to do with the fact that Bill O'Connell, a cub reporter for the Catholic Northwest Progress and later to become its editor, was at the Progress office which at that time was downtown, on second avenue, I think. He heard all the commotion and decided to hike up the hill and find out what was going on. That he did and when he got to the cathedral the dome was gone. The first person he met was the cathedral's pastor, Father William Noonan, a secretive Irishman who didn't want anybody to know anything under the best of circumstances. He sidled up to Bill O'Connell and in his most conspiratorial tone said: "Now, Willam, not a word of this to the press." Can you imagine that. The dome gone and the press was not supposed to know about it.

Already saddled with a debt from the building of the cathedral, the distraught bishop was forced to close the cathedral for more than a year and once again began to raise money for a cathedral whose only insurance coverage had been for fire. The high cost of repairs prevented the dome's reconstruction. The building reopened on March 18, 1917 after more than $150,000 had been spent on repairs and changes to the interior, an interior which looked entirely different than it had before.

Changes included a less dramatic ceiling, now fully fifteen feet lower than the original, and the addition of the cosmetic transept columns. One of the most notable changes was the installation in the center of the church of four enormous piers that were added to support a future dome. Italian renaissance style frieze work decorated the nave. A copy of Raphael's "Ascension" was painted on the ceiling where the dome once stood. In addition, the cathedral's handsome baldachino over the high altar was replaced with a raredos (a backdrop) against which a new high altar was erected.

The nine year old cathedral had undergone a major change in appearance, and kept that appearance for some 35 years until 1950 when Archbishop Connolly gave it an entirely new look. This 1950 change lasted until about 1994 and the present pastor, Father Michael Ryan, saw to the redoing of the cathedral in its present beautiful condition.

Bishop O'Dea did many other things during the long course of his time as Bishop of Seattle. He always tried to get Catholic churches and institutions built on a hill where they could be seen his cathedral church being a prime example as well as St. John's Church, St. Mary's at 20th and Weller and Holy Rosary. He was responsible for the relocation of the Immaculate parish, my home parish. When the Immaculate began its service of God's people it was located in what we know today as the oldest building on the Seattle University campus, Garrand Hall. Because the cathedral was so close, Bishop O'Dea asked the Jesuit fathers to move the parish to its present location at 18th and Marion. This happened and the Jesuit fathers stayed in charge until 1929 when the parish was turned over to the diocesan priests and Monsignor Ryan became the pastor. The Jesuit Father General had come to the conclusion that it was not good for them to have two parishes, Immaculate and St. Joseph's, neighbors to one another so they gave up the Immaculate parish.

Probably the crowning glory of Bishop O'Dea's tenure as bishop of Seattle was the establishment of St. Edward's seminary on the northeast shore of Lake Washington. As far back as 1905 the bishop had determined that he would he would have a seminary. He recognized the priests of the past but at the same time felt his responsibility to provide American priests for the growing number of Americans. So in 1905 he negotiated the purchase of a piece of property of some 64 acres at the north end of Angle Lake which is south and east of the airport. For $5000 he purchased the property from the Dominican Sisters of Tacoma. At the time the site seemed well suited for a seminary. It should be noted that he and the other bishops of the province had signed an agreement on April 17, 1917 calling for the establishment of a provincial seminary in Portland, hopefully under the direction of the Sulpician fathers who had shown interest in the project. With all due respect to the bishops of the province, Bishop O'Dea thought that the seminary should be built in his diocese.

Much as he liked the Angle Lake property, circumstances forced the bishop to change his mind. Its lack of fencing and isolation had made the Angle Lake property quite a "lover's lane" and a popular place for drinking parties. The end came when the police complained to Monsignor Ryan and Mr. George Hayes, the bishop's secretary and property manager, that the place was becoming a place of considerable disturbance. With reluctance, but realism, the bishop agreed to sell the property in 1925, keeping a tract of it for the use of the boys at Briscoe home in the Kent valley.

Various other sites were looked at including the Moran School on Bainbridge Island, property on Blake Island (where Chief Seattle was supposed to have been born) and the Patrick Downey estate in what is now Bellevue. All were rejected for various reasons. In the meantime, Father Jean Verdier, Superior General of the Sulpicians, visited Seattle and expressed enthusiasm for Seattle as the site of the future seminary. That was in 1923. Father Verdier later became the archbishop of Paris and a cardinal.

Bishop O'Dea had long wanted a provincial seminary, that is, one that would serve the needs of the dioceses of the Pacific Northwest but also British Columbia and Alaska. The Apostolic Delegate at the time, Archbishop Pietro Fumisoni Biondi, let it be known that he would welcome an invitation to the blessing of the cornerstone. This brought together the Delegate, Archbishop Howard of Portland and the bishops of the Oregon province as well as visiting bishops from Canada for the occasion.

There's a story about Archbishop Howard which took place many years later. He lived to be about 107 years old and one time a group of bishops including our own Archbishop Connolly were talking and some comment was made and Archbishop Connolly said: "I must make a note of that for my second successor." Archbishop Howard said: "I'll tell him."

The seminary opened on September 19, 1931 with three years of high school and fifty-one students from Seattle, Spokane, Baker, Portland, Boise and Vancouver, B.C. Bishop O'Dea's good friend, Denis Cardinal Dougherty of Philadelphia, traveled across the country to dedicate the seminary on October 13, 1931 the Feast of St Edward the Confessor, Bishop O'Dea's patronal feast. (When Bishop Dougherty had been a missionary bishop in the Philippines, Bishop O'Dea had assisted him with money and Cardinal Dougherty never forgot the bishop's kindness and returned the favor.)

Bishop O'Dea did not live long after the dedication of the seminary. He celebrated his jubilee as a bishop at the cathedral (which I attended) and he died on Christmas Day of 1932, truly one of the greatest bishops to reign over the diocese of Seattle. Sadly St. Edward's Seminary is no longer in existence. Probably what will happen in years to come is that vocations will increase and there will be a need for a seminary and someone will say: "Gee, there's a neat building on the northeast shore of Lake Washington that would make a great seminary. Let's buy it and turn it into a seminary"

Bishop O'Dea died as he had lived always with God's blessing on his lips. He left little of this world's goods because he had given everything away. He had instructed Monsignor Ryan to see to it that he returned to the earth as quickly as possible. Although he had built eight crypts in the cathedral floor when he built the building, he chose to be buried "among his priests and people" at Calvary Cemetery. Four holes had been made in the bottom of his vault and the lid of his casket was propped open and when we opened his grave all had been done in accordance with his wishes. There was no doubt that his clergy, religious and people believed that his life was a benediction on them. His steadfast faith in the face of every difficulty, his staunch defense of the Church's rights, his gentle but firm policies and his love for all made him capable of living out his motto taken from St. Paul's' First Corinthians, "I made myself all things to all people in order to save some at any cost."

Having seen the work of this great bishop for the Church of Seattle brings our talk to an end. If you have any questions I will be glad to answer them for a period of time.
 

In this photo taken at the blessing of Mt. St. Vincent's in the early 1930s, Bishop O'Dea is seen with his right hand man, Msgr. Theodore Ryan, first native Seattleite to be ordained a priest (and a relative of Father Michael G. Ryan's!).