According to church history, the parish that Holy Family Church serves was founded by Father Arnold Damen, a Jesuit missionary for whom Chicago’s Damen Avenue is named. In 1857, the church was built over the running water of Red Creek, an ancient practice in Europe, and the building’s main altar is said to be positioned directly over the water. As an aside, tradition has it that the river received the name of "Red Creek" after an Indian battle that was fought here centuries ago caused the water to run red with blood. The site came to be considered sacred by the Native Americans, making it the a perfect candidate for another holy site in years to come.

The church saw what was considered to be its first miracle just a few years after it was constructed. On the east side of the main altar is a large, badly proportioned statue of Our Lady of Perpetual Help that was created by a local man sometime in the 1860’s. It came to be considered the protective guardian of the church after a crack was discovered one day that threatened the very structure of the building. The crack had made its way down one wall of the church, from the ceiling to the floor. If it enlarged further, church officials were warned, a wall, or several of the walls, could collapse. Father Damen decided to place the church under the protection of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and he moved the large wooden statue so that it stood under the crack. Somehow, it held for many decades and was never repaired until a major renovation in the 1980’s. For more than a century, despite years of water damage and decay from rain seeping through the fissure, parishioners were confident in the fact that the building was never in any real danger, thanks to the watchfulness of the church’s protector.

Other miracles and strange happenings followed. Perhaps the greatest was the salvation of the church during the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Although Mrs. O’Leary’s cow never really kicked over a lantern, the fire did start near DeKoven and Jefferson Streets, just a few blocks away from Holy Family. When the fire broke out, Father Damen was in New York but he received a telegraph from Chicago that alerted him to the fact that the city was in flames and the church and the parish were in danger. There was little that he could do from so far away, other than to pray and to trust in God and Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Mysteriously, the fire somehow shifted away from the church and burned a path to the north instead, destroying the downtown business district, but sparing Holy Family. The parish was saved and the event was acknowledged as a miracle. When Father Damen returned home to Chicago, he ordered seven candles to be kept burning on a side altar to commemorate the event. After a few years, the candles were replaced by gas jets and then light bulbs, but have burned brightly ever since.

Throughout modern times, reported hauntings at Holy Family seem to suggest that Father Damen still makes occasional appearances here, watching over his beloved parish. If this is true, then he may not linger here alone. According to accounts from Father David McCarthy, who has researched much of the history and lore of the church, a shadowy figure is sometimes seen in the old choir loft, which is not open to the public. Some of these sightings he has personally witnessed himself. On occasional mornings when saying mass, Father McCarthy has turned to the congregation and has noticed the figure in the loft. He knows that no one can actually be there because the loft has been considered unsafe and off limits for quite some time. The first time a sighting occurred though, Father McCarthy investigated but found that the door to the loft was locked. Regardless, he went into the loft and checked the spot where the figure had been standing. He found that the dust of the years had been undisturbed and that the only footprints left here were his own. Apparently, there is a old Catholic tradition that says that those who miss Sunday mass during their lifetime will have to make up for the services they missed after death. Could this explain the baffling figure?

Likely the most welcome ghost at Holy Family though would be that of Father Damen himself. During the latter part of the 1900’s, clergy members and staff here have reported a figure, wearing clerical dress, who passes through the church or patrols the hallways of St. Ignatius College Preparatory High School next door. These sightings were especially prevalent during the 1990’s, when the church and school were being renovated. Just a few years before, the Jesuits had considered destroying the aging landmark and selling off the empty lot but donations and fund raising had garnered the necessary funds to restore the place. Many believe that perhaps Father Damen returned because of the all of the activity that was occurring in the building.

Or perhaps he was already here, worried about the original plans to tear down the church in the early 1980’s. Late one evening in 1985, a St. Ignatius student was working in the library with several others on some of the fund raising programs and decided to take a break. He walked out into the hallway and saw a figure, dressed in clerical garments, turn and enter a classroom further down the corridor. Thinking that it was odd that someone else was working so late, he mentioned to the other students what he had seen. They laughed as he tried to explain it to them for they already knew who the priest was -- Father Damen, still making his rounds.

Without a doubt though, the most famous story of Holy Family also involves Father Damen and supernatural assistance of another sort. The legend has been referred to in parish histories of the church and it involves what many believe to be the curious additions to the décor of Holy Family. These additions are two wooden statues that depict altar boys who are dressed in old fashioned cassocks. The two young boys were said to be brothers who drowned together while on a parish picnic in 1874. No one had any idea at the time that they would return to play a very mysterious part in the history of this spiritual community.

According to the story, Father Damen was awakened one winter’s night in the late 1880’s, during a terrible snow storm, by the insistent ringing of the bell at the rectory. When the porter opened the door, he found two young boys on the doorstep, shivering in the cold, anxiously asking for a priest to come and call on a sick woman who was not expected to last through the night.

Father Damen overheard their pleas and he told the boys that he would come with them immediately. Bundling up into his warmest coat and scarf, he followed the boys out into the night. They trudged for blocks through the nearly blinding snow to a dilapidated cottage on the far edge of the parish. As they reached the door, the boys told the priest that the sick woman had taken to her bed at the top floor of the house, the garret. He quickly opened the door and went inside and began climbing the rickety steps to the upper floor. As Father Damen turned to speak to the two boys, he realized that they were gone.

At the top of the steps, he entered a small room and found an old woman lying on a bed in the corner. She turned to look at him weakly but managed to smile when she saw that her caller was a priest. She thanked him for coming and he heard her confession and gave her the last rites of the church. The elderly woman was comforted and yet confused by his presence. She asked him how he knew to come to her, admitting that she was very ill and needed a priest, but that she had know no one to send for one.

Father Damen explained that two boys had awakened him and asked him to come. He assumed that they were neighbors, perhaps sent by their parents to fetch him. But the woman insisted that she had spoken with no one. She did not know her neighbors anymore and no one knew she had been ill. There had been simply no one for her to send to summon spiritual help.

"Have you no boys of your own?" Father Damen asked her.

"I had two sons many years ago, altar boys at the church," she replied. "But they have long since died."

Father Damen had the stunning revelation that the two vanished boys had been the woman’s sons, returning to help her in her hour of need. He explained his feelings to the woman as she lay dying and when she passed away near morning, she did so with a smile on her face. She had found peace and believed that she would soon be reunited with her lost children. Father Damen was so moved by what had occurred that he commissioned two wooden statues of altar boys and had them placed high above the main altar of the church.

They have been watching over the parish ever since.

(Special thanks to Ursula Bielski for assistance with this article. Visit Holy Family Church on the December "Ghosts of Christmas Past" tours with Chicago Hauntings!)

Prairie Ghosts~