Old Missoula

Farewell Party Given For Father O’Kennedy

Ill Health Forces St. Anthony Pastor to Leave

Rev. J. J. O’Kennedy, formerly paster of St. Anthony’s church, yesterday left for Helena. From the Capital city he will go to San Francisco to remain for a time before leaving for Ireland, where he will visit his aged mother whom he has not seen for about 18 years.

Father O’Kennedy is forced to relinquish his parish on account of ill health.

He will be succeeded in his work here by Rev. D. P. Mead sic [Meade], who comes from St. Phillips church at Philipsburg.

Friday night a farewell party was given in honor of Father O’Kennedy at which time more than 125 parishioners gathered to bid him farewell. Father O’Kennedy has been in Missoula for a little more than two years.

A number of speakers addressed those assembled, among them being Mayor W. H. Beacom, Professor E. F. Carey of the State University, Rev. J. F. Harrington, Father O’Kennedy and Father Mead.

The meeting also took the form of a welcome to the incoming pastor. Father Mead comes to Missoula after nine years of service in Philipsburg.

 

The above article appeared in The Sunday Missoulian on September 30, 1923.

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“And the men of Helena . . . broad in mind and big in heart, as big and broad as the mountains on which we have our homes.”

O’Kennedy’s Farewell in Helena

Rev. John. J. O’Kennedy had been in Helena for 10 years prior to coming to Missoula. He was given a “loving farewell” at St. Helena hall by his parishioners in Helena and friends. He was a handball expert and a sportsman generally. In his farewell address he made an interesting comment about his time in Helena and especially regarding his friendship with the Jewish attorney, Lester Loble.

“One word more: I am at a loss to find words to express my gratitude to my good friend Lester Loble, and my other friends among the handball players of Helena for the compliment they paid me this evening. On most of the other people in this hall I have a claim. They are of my own religious belief. But on the handball players I have no such claim; for they are nearly all Jews and non-Catholics, and hence the compliment paid me is all the more appreciated as it is plain evidence of their good will.

“Whatever I did for handball in Helena I did out of love for the game. I did it because convinced of what a power for good it is toward clean living and clear thinking. The men who play handball are men of clean lives. They must be or they could get nowhere in the game. The men who play handball are imbued with a truly American spirit.

“We hear a lot nowadays about Americanizing the foreigner; but the real menace to American institutions and American ideals is not the uneducated, hard-working foreigner who comes to our shores seeking opportunities denied him at home, but the fellow within our gates, who lives here, fostering hate, creating strife, dividing our people, setting class against class and creed against creed. He is the one who needs to be Americanized more than any other, and not the least important agent in the process of Americanization is clean sport, whether it is handball or baseball or any of the clean sport that brings men together, gets them acquainted, broadens them and teaches them to give the other fellow a square deal. And the men of Helena whom I have met in handball, be their creed what it may, or no creed at all, are all broad in mind and big in heart, as big and broad as the mountains on which we have our homes. And in going to Missoula, busy though I expect to be for a long time, I shall not forget handball and I certainly shall not forget the good friends of Helena of every religious belief whom I have made through my association with handball.”

 

The above excerpt is from a Missoulian article that appeared on September 21, 1921.

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The Rev. John J. O’Kennedy died at Polson in 1972.

His obituary appeared in The Missoulian on January 30, 1972:

Dies in Polson

Polson – The Rev. John J. O’Kennedy, founder of St. Anthony Parish in Missoula died Friday in Polson at the age of 89.

He had served the diocese of Helena for nearly 60 years and had lived in retirement at St. Joseph Hospital in Polson since 1967.

Father O’Kennedy was born in 1882 in Ireland and was ordained there June 10, 1906.

He served briefly in New York and joined the Helena diocese in 1906.

He served as pastor of St. Joseph and St. Patrick parishes in Butte and St. Mary in Helena. He also served as pastor of the Cathedral parish in Helena and later was put in charge of financing the first expansion program of Mount Charles College, now Carroll College.

In 1921 he established the parish of St. Anthony in Missoula and later moved back to Butte where he served at St. Anne. Later he went to Bozeman where he spent 15 years at Holy Rosary Parish before coming to Polson.

The body will lie in state in immaculate Conception Church in Polson beginning 1 p.m. Monday. Rosary will be recited at 8 p.m. Monday at the church and Mass of the Resurrection will be celebrated Tuesday at 10 a.m. by the Rev. Thomas J. Meagher. A second mass will be said in Helena Tuesday at 3 p.m. at the Cathedral of St. Helena with the Most Rev. Raymond Hunthausen, bishop of Helena, as celebrant.

Burial will be in Resurrection Cemetery in Helena. Mosley Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

 

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The Rt. Rev. Msgr. Denis P. Meade, P. A., V. G., died in Missoula on August 1, 1967. A large article about him appeared in The Missoulian on August 2, 1967[1]. He was born in Limerick, Ireland in 1888, was educated there, and came to the United States in 1914. He first served as assistant pastor of St. Lawrence Parish in Walkerville, Mt. in October 1914, and went to Philipsburg a month later, named acting pastor at St. Philip Parish there. He was appointed pastor of Missoula’s St. Anthony Parish on September 23, 1923. He remained at St. Anthony Parish until his death in 1967. St. Anthony parish was only two years old when Meade arrived. A new St. Anthony church at the same location was built in 1963. It was the largest parish in the Diocese of Helena at the time of his death.