June 12, 2009
Former resident to find final resting spot at St. Vincent Orphanage
By PAUL R. LEINGANG (Message editor)
Pat Clark and George Frederick were orphans, both at St. Vincent Orphanage in Vincennes, but not at the same time. After they met, much later in life, they kept in touch for several years.
Pat still lives in Vincennes. He has retired from a career in radio broadcasting but he is active in local government, serves on the city council — and since 1988 he has been organizing reunions for St. Vincent Orphanage.
George moved away, to Paradise, Calif. He married, but was divorced and there were no children. George has some relatives, including a cousin in Vincennes.
Pat recalls the words of a big favor George once asked him: “If or when I leave this big, wide wonderful world, I wonder if I could be buried on the orphanage grounds.”
There are some children’s graves in that cemetery, along with the burial sites of three Providence sisters. The last burial was for a diocesan priest, Msgr. A. J. Sprigler in 1962.
George did leave this world, in August last year, and his ashes will be buried on Saturday, June 20 at around 1 p.m. — in the spot Pat arranged for him.
“He was a nice guy and he relied on me to line things up, and I did.”
Burial will be in the small cemetery on the grounds of St. Vincent Church, with the pastor, Father David Fleck presiding. George had been in the Navy, so Pat tracked down his service records and arranged for military honors.
Burial will be June 20 in a plot next to the grave of a four-year old orphan boy who died in 1940 of meningitis. Pat said it is a good spot for George, and for that little boy, too — it will be for him now, “like he had a big brother for all eternity.”
Pat acknowledges that not everyone who lived at the orphanage has good memories of it. Among the many orphanage contacts he has made over the years, planning Orphanage reunions, he has heard a wide range of comments. Some children ran away from the orpanage. Some were returned. Some never came back.
No matter what the memory, though, Pat wants everyone to know that they are all invited to be there when George comes back for the last time.