Attending Mass at Holy Family to greet the newly appointed pastor of Holy Family Notre Dame de Chicago, were: ( l. to r.) Patti Bellock, Robert Emmett Nolan, Barbara Nolan and Michael Nolan.
Patti, a former member of the Illinois House of Representatives from the 47
th district in the western suburbs, is the great, great granddaughter of
John Comiskey, a native of Ireland ( 1830-1900) who came to America in 1848. President of the Chicago City Council, Comiskey was a collaborator of Father Damen’s in the early days of the parish. He is memorialized in one of Holy Family’s 12 round clerestory windows, the oldest stained glass in Chicago. Patti’s great grandfather was
Charles Comiskey, baseball player, manager and founder of the Chicago White Sox and one of the first students to enroll in St. Ignatius College in 1870.
The Nolans are descendants of
Timothy Nolan, a laborer and his wife,
Ellen Peters, who resided on Catherine Street (now 15
th Street near Jefferson Street 600 West) at the time of Holy Family’s founding in 1857. According to Volume 1 ofHoly Family’s baptismal records, founding pastor,
Rev. Arnold Damen, S.J., baptized the Nolan’s daughter,
Mary Ann Nolan, in the first few days of the new Jesuit parish, on August 6, 1857.
Six generations of the Nolan family have links to Father Damen, S.J.’s several Chicago Jesuit institutions—Holy Family, St. Ignatius College Prep and Loyola University. The Nolans lived in the parish until about 1890 when sons Timothy and Michael Nolan, both postal carriers, moved to the south side of Chicago.
Today’s generations of Nolans with ties to Holy Family parish include attorneys, teachers, a university archivist, business executives, high school and law school students.
Nolan descendants who are alumni of St. Ignatius College Prep, are: Liz Howard, 1990; Rachel Howard, 1991; Ruth Howard, 1993; Ann Howard, 1998; Mary Howard, 2001; and Katherine E. Nolan, 2002. Another Nolan family member, Gabriel Muthart, is a member of the class of 2019.
The Nolan family graduates of Loyola University Chicago, which dates its founding to the beginning of St. Ignatius College in 1870, include: Robert J. Nolan, 1938; Robert Emmett Nolan, 1975; Mary Bryant, 1976; Michael Nolan, 1981; Edith Nolan, Alice Nolan Shoup, Master of Arts 1995; Ruth Howard Clarke, 1997. Douglass Nolan is a member of the Law School class of 2018.
Patti Bellock and the Nolan family members expressed strong interest in continuing Holy Family’s Sunday liturgies.