Father Czyzewski: the builder of Polish South Bend

1846 – 1913

The Rev. Valentine Czyzewski, C.S.C. (1846–1913): the priest who built the Polish west side's mother parish and, with it, much of Polish South Bend. He was born on 14 February 1846 — one account gives 15 February — at Talkuny, in the Suwałki province of Russian Poland, the son of Joseph and Eve (Zylinski) Czyzewski. He came to the United States in 1869 and worked first as a laborer; he entered Notre Dame's seminary (the parish history dates his entry 21 June 1873), made his solemn vows in the Congregation of Holy Cross on 15 August 1874 — the first person of Polish descent to join the congregation, and its first Polish priest in America — and was ordained by Bishop Dwenger on 28 December 1876 by the parish history and his Tribune obituary (an 1893 Goodspeed memoir gives 28 January 1876; both dates stand in the record).

Days later, on 1 January 1877, he was assigned to organize a parish for South Bend's Polish immigrants, first called St. Joseph's. The wooden church built in 1877 was destroyed by a storm in November 1879; Czyzewski rebuilt on the permanent site at Scott and Napier, and the church — renamed St. Hedwig's — was dedicated in April 1883 — Alerding’s diocesan history gives 15 April, the parish’s Diamond Jubilee history and Notre Dame’s Building South Bend give 8 April; both days stand in the record, in 1883. The parish grew under him from 125 families to at least 850 by 1898 on Blanchard’s count (Alerding counted about 828 in 1907), and its school reached 1,025 pupils at the close of the 1899 term, the largest enrollment of any school in South Bend on Swastek’s count.

From 1884 he circuit-rode to the Polish farm families west of the city, helped organize the parishes at Terre Coupee (1884) and Rolling Prairie (1891), administered the new St. Stanislaus (founded 1898) until it had a pastor of its own, and founded Polish night schools for laborers — the first late in 1877, and again in 1902. He died on 30 June 1913, of a heat-induced heart attack, minutes before a wedding he was to perform. His funeral was the largest South Bend had seen to that date, with the funeral Mass celebrated by Bishop Paul Rhode of Green Bay, the first Polish-American bishop in the United States. The parish system he fathered — St. Hedwig the mother parish, St. Stanislaus, St. Casimir's (1899), and the fraternal and school life around them — stands in the Religion record; the builder stands here.

Sources:

1. Congregation of Holy Cross, "Stories of Holy Cross" (2023) — the first Polish member and priest of the congregation, the 1877 assignment, the parish growth, the death of 30 June 1913, and the funeral's scale.
2. St. Adalbert's parish, 50th-anniversary history (archive.org) — the birth at Talkuny, the 1869 emigration, the seminary entry of 21 June 1873, the vows of 15 August 1874, the ordination of 28 December 1876, and the circuit parishes of Terre Coupee and Rolling Prairie.
3. Pinkowski Files (Polish-American historical biographies) — the birth date of 14 February 1846, the St. Hedwig dedication as 15 April 1884 and the school passing 1,000 students by 1896 — the earlier figures, which the parish record supersedes in the entry above — and its cost.
4. Goodspeed's county memoir (1893) and the South Bend Tribune obituary excerpts (INGenWeb) — the 28 January 1876 ordination variant and the February birth-date variant, carried in the entry; the Tribune of 1 and 3 July 1913 on the death and funeral.