St. Mary's Resurgent

A scant five years after it was founded by San Francisco's Archbishop Joseph Sadoc Alemany in 1863, little St. Mary's College foundered, was saved only when Pope Pius IX appealed to the Brothers of the Christian Schools, a lay order, to take it over. The college burned down in 1894, rose from its ashes, was razed again by fire in 1918, made still another fresh start. In 1921, when it hired Edward Patrick ("Slip") Madigan to coach its football teams, St. Mary's began an era of prosperity that culminated when it moved, 700 students strong, into a $1,500,000 plant in the Moraga Valley. But last summer, despite Slip Madigan and its football team (whose expenses ate up all the gate receipts), St. Mary's was sold at auction for $411,150 to a committee of bondholders for default of payments on $1,370,500 in outstanding bonds (TIME, Aug. 2). That ended its fourth life, but St. Mary's still had some left. Four months ago another San Francisco archbishop, Rev. John Joseph Mitty, marched into the bondholders' offices, bought back the college for $715,000. Last week the bells of St. Mary's rang loud & clear as a procession headed by Archbishop Mitty marched across its campus before its 450 students, celebrated with pomp & ceremony the college's 75th anniversary.

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