In the early 1900s, two institutions — the Notre Dame Convent boarding school for girls and St. Viator College for young men — gave the village of Bourbonnais a reputation as the area’s educational center. The two schools were a source of great pride for the approximately 600 residents of the tiny, picturesque town.
That community pride was severely wounded on the evening of Feb. 21, 1906, when a raging fire roared through the college’s row of interconnected classroom, residence and chapel buildings. Only the school’s separate gymnasium and dining hall building was spared. The nearby Maternity BVM Church also escaped damage.
When the fire was detected about 8 p.m. on the third floor of the residence section, few people were in the building — most of the students and faculty were in the gymnasium, attending a basketball game.
“Fire-fighting brigades of students, brothers, and seminarians were organized,” reported the Kankakee Daily Republican in an anniversary article on Feb. 21, 1913, seven years after the fire (the original report from the 1906 Kankakee Gazette has been lost). “With fine courage, every available means of extinguishing the flames were used. Inhabitants of the village who became aware of the fire voluntarily assisted the collegians in combatting the progress of the destroyer. The Kankakee and Bradley fire departments hurried to the scene of the conflagration, but … were unable to arrest the blaze ….The flames had gained so much headway that it became evident all the college buildings, connected together, were to become the prey of the devastating fiend.”
Once it became clear the fire could not be stopped, “Orders were then given to the students to save what they could and with the best of care and discipline, under the direction of the Reverend Fathers and brothers, not a single life was lost, nor was any one injured.”
The most spectacular aspects of the fire were displayed when the flames reached the three-story portion of the stone building housing Roy Memorial Chapel, which was topped with a distinctive cupola and a golden statue. Named for the Rev. Thomas Roy, the college’s first president, the chapel section of the building had been erected in 1889.
“From the solid stone building, the fire leaped into the chapel, and within a short time, the chapel became itself a mass of flames. Detonations, the bursting of heating pipes and the explosion of the boilers, the crashing of iron pillars and the falling of the stained glass and marble altars to the basement were heard for several miles around,” noted the Daily Republican article.
Some of the suddenly homeless students and faculty spent the night in the gymnasium and the town hall, but “the great mass, however, were housed and cared for by the residents of Bourbonnais. It was a pathetic scene the following morning to see the students returning in small groups from their scattered lodgments and assembling in front of the ruined building, like young birds around their wrecked nest.”
The Rev. Moses Marsile, president of the college, told the assembled students, “We are not disheartened, as the designs of the Lord are inscrutable.” He vowed that the college would be rebuilt. Work began almost immediately on two new buildings — a student residence hall and a classroom/office building. By 1920, work was completed on an impressive new four-story stone administration building that was named for the Rev. Marsile.
St. Viator College traced its roots back to 1865, when three members of the Clerics of St. Viator, a religious order that operated schools in Quebec, arrived in Bourbonnais. The men were Father Peter Beaudoin, who would become pastor of Maternity BVM parish, and Brothers Jean Baptiste Bernard and Augustin Martel, who would open a school for the boys of Bourbonnais. (Girls were educated at Notre Dame Convent, which had been established in 1860 by sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame from Montreal.)
The boys’ school established by the Viatorian Brothers grew and expanded in its educational offerings; in 1874, the school was awarded a University Charter by the State of Illinois. The Rev. Thomas Roy, a member of the school’s faculty since 1868, became the first president of St. Viator Collage.
Fire again struck St. Viator 20 years after the devastating 1906 blaze. Ironically, the 1926 conflagration destroyed the school’s gymnasium — the only building to survive the earlier fire. To build a new gym, the college took out a $320,000 loan. The economic depression of the 1930s drastically affected the school’s enrollment, and thus its income. The school was unable to make payments on the loan, and in 1938, the lender foreclosed on the property. St. Viator officials announced that the school would not reopen for the 1938-39 academic year.
In February, 1940, the campus in Bourbonnais had a new owner. Olivet College, a small school located in Olivet, Ill., was seeking a new location following a fire that destroyed its building. Olivet’s officials heard about the vacant St. Viator campus, and purchased it for $195,000 plus the insurance proceeds on its burned building. In September, 1940, the first students reported for classes at the new Olivet College (now Olivet Nazarene University).
A graduate of St. Viator College became internationally famous in the 1950s when he pioneered the use of television and radio for religious programming. Who was he?
Answer: The Rev. Fulton J. Sheen, whose “Life is Worth Living” television program drew huge audiences. On April 14, 1952, he was pictured on the cover of TIME magazine, which described him as “the first televangelist.”