Father O’Dwyer was a brother of Chief Justice Edward F. O’Dwyer, of the City Court of the City of New York; also a member of our Society, and a son of John O’Dwyer and Catherine Ryan, who came from Ireland to America in the early part of the last century.
Father O’Dwyer was born in New York City, in 1862, and was forty-seven years of age at the time of his death. He was educated at St. Francis Xavier’s College, West 16th Street, and entered Fordham University in 1882, graduating from the latter institution two years later. After graduation he entered St. Joseph’s Seminary, Troy, and was ordained on December 22, 1888.
From 1890 to 1893 Father O’Dwyer labored as assistant priest in St. Raphael’s Church, West 40th Street, and later went to the Church of the Blessed Sacrament, where he remained until 1903, when he became pastor of St. John’s.
He found St. John’s Church a frame building, unimposing and unattractive. His first effort as pastor was the establishment of a church fund to improve the place of worship of the fast growing congregation. St. John’s had been established in 1870 as a mission to the parish of St. Elizabeth at Fort Washington and was made a separate parish in 1886, sixteen years after. He immediately set about improving the parish generally. He changed and renovated the old church and began the erection of a new one. The new church, built on the site of the old one, was begun about four years ago. At the time of his death it had been finished but not yet dedicated. He devoted himself without reserve to the work of raising this splendid monument and labored tirelessly for the accomplishment of his great purpose. The result was a structure magnificent for the surrounding territory, and worthy of this great Metropolis. A spacious chapel occupied the basement, and in the rear was a Lyceum or club for boys, with athletic apparatus and other attractions for entertaining the youth of the neighborhood.
This soon became a social center. The young men found themselves in possession of a club with pleasant adjuncts and friendly companionship. He organized numerous societies for both men and women and threw his great energy into the effort to make the hall a center of interest, with such force and vigor that it soon became the meeting place for the youth of the vicinage and elevated the moral and social conditions of the parish, which grew and strengthened with his success, kindling ambition and toning up the character and bearing of the neighborhood. That parish ceased thereafter to be listless or easy-going. It blossomed with animation and interest. He called the hall St. John’s Lyceum. The new church, with its various attachments, cost in the neighborhood of $200,000; but there was entertainment and amusement for all the young men and women of his parish; and as they saw it grow in beauty and utility, witnessing the excellence of his ideas and the splendid manner of their execution, they knew their pastor worked unselfishly for them, and the amelioration of all conditions in his parish, uniting entertainment and instruction in his devoted purpose.
To aid the speedy completion of the church, he sought the help of a host of lifelong friends. Willing responses to a cheery appeal brought assistance from every side; and the work, ordinarily of years, grew to fruition within a few short seasons. His tireless efforts probably undermined his robust constitution. But loving his work and his people with all his golden heart, he cast himself with streaming courage into the battle, to win, in one brief spell, a victory that was fitting crown for a lifetime’s labor.
Everywhere Father O’Dwyer went he endeared himself to all with whom he came in contact. In appearance a striking figure, handsome, tall, well-proportioned and instinct with nervous force, he was a charming companion and a delightful speaker, versatile, amusing, instructive or learned as suited his varying purposes or the needs of the hour. Jovial and sympathetic in ordinary intercourse, he never forgot the necessity of inculcating at the proper times the sterner duties. Yet he was always the same wholesome force for the cheerful as well as the simple life.
As sunshine broken in the rill,
Though turned aside, is sunshine still.
An enthusiastic admirer of athletics he ever sought to perpetuate and assist in the games of his college as well as of his parochial school and the Lyceum.