Adrienne's Corner

It Snowed Last Night

(Just enough to be appreciated.... Thank you God)

We have gorgeous sunsets

Father Costello

*****A few weeks ago I posted on finding two holy cards for Father William Costello in a book I purchased at the thrift store. I wondered what had caused him to die so young and put him up for "adoption." My blogger buddy Packrat offered to adopt and pray for Father Costello and so I mailed one of the two cards to her.

Just days ago I received this email from Greg in North Carolina:

*****Hi there... I was running some Google searches tonight and found your blog about my cousin (well, technically my mother's cousin) Fr. William Costello. How funny you'd find his cards tucked away in a book after all these years! I still have one of those myself!

*****Fr. Bill was a Jesuit scholar and formerly head of the English Dept at Gonzaga in Spokane. He was Harvard educated and then went on to England to complete his PhD. He was the first Jesuit scholar admitted to Cambridge since the Reformation. One of his brothers, Fr. Frank Costello, is the retired VP and former head of the Political Science Dept at Gonzaga, and his sister Mother Mary Michael Costello is Mother Superior of an order of nuns in Bridalveil, OR. She had been a Provincial Mother when I was young, and after a petition to the Vatican, she was allowed to form her own order by decree granted by Pope Paul VI.

*****Our family originally came across in a wagon train in 1852 and settled in Spokane as either the first or some of the first white settlers. My great grandmother Caroline Costello lived in Moscow, Lewiston and the Nez Perce area in the 1910s and 1920s. My grandmother Reta Costello Breshear graduated from Lewiston Normal School for Girls in +/- 1906 and I believe her first job was teaching in Nez Perce. I have a postcard from the school dated 1910 inviting her to an alumni dinner which was addressed to her simply as "Reta Costello, Nez Perce, ID." I also have a photo of her dorm room from Lewiston Normal, which is one of my most prized possessions.

*****I could go on & on... my great grandparents are buried in the family plot in Walla Walla (I graduated from Whitman) and it just happens that I am the de facto keeper of the family history. My mother is still living (in the San Juan Islands); she adored Fr. Bill and I am sure she would love to have the prayer cards. If you want to drop them in the mail I will forward them along.

Thanks for the posting. Always nice to find these bits and pieces of the family floating around.

Greg also added this to the combox:

*****Adrienne, I sent you an email via gmail. Fr. Bill is my cousin. He died after a ruptured aneurysm caused a massive stroke. He had been head of the English Dept at Gonzaga; his brother Fr Frank Costello was head of the Political Science Dept at Gonzaga as well. His ties to Cambridge were because he completed his PhD there, and he was the first Jesuit scholar admitted to Cambridge since the Reformation. I don't know if that book of his was a barn-burner or not but I suspect it was his doctoral dissertation. They are not known, generally, to be great reads.

Adopt a Bowl Person for Lent

*****If you are new to this blog or missed the post on my "bowl people" and the adoption program you can read about here

*****Lent would be a wonderful time to adopt one of these souls as your very own. Over the past few years I've probably adopted out over 100 people to be prayed for in a special way.


See you for Saving Money Saturday. Seeing as how our current President's 3.55 trillion budget will cost each and every citizen of the United States over 25 thousand dollars, we will do well to be thrifty.