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Historical records matching Rev. Fr. Thomas Ewing Sherman, S.J.
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About Rev. Fr. Thomas Ewing Sherman, S.J.
Rev. Fr. Thomas Ewing Sherman, S.J.
- Rev. Thomas Ewing Sherman's Wikipedia Page
- Find A Grave Memorial ID # 8225655
- General Sherman's son by Joseph T Durkin
- On this day: Gen. Sherman's Son, National Catholic Reporter
Sherman was an American lawyer, educator, and Catholic Jesuit priest. He was the fourth child and second son of Union Army General William Tecumseh Sherman and his wife Ellen Ewing Sherman.
Life
Sherman was named after his maternal grandfather Thomas Ewing, a U.S. Senator and cabinet secretary. Tom was born in San Francisco, California, while his father worked there as a bank executive. His mother, Ellen, was of Irish ancestry on her mother's side and devoutly Catholic. During the American Civil War, Tom's father rose to become one of the most important generals in the United States Army. When his superior, Ulysses S. Grant, became President of the United States, William Tecumseh Sherman was appointed commanding general of the army.
Tom was brought up in St. Louis and Washington. He attended the preparatory department of Georgetown College and graduated with a B.A. degree from that institution in 1874. He then entered Yale University's Sheffield Scientific School as a graduate student in English literature. He received a law degree from Washington University in St. Louis in 1878, and was admitted to the bar. To his father's great and ever-lasting displeasure, he soon gave up the profession of the law in order to study for the Roman Catholic Church priesthood. That same year he joined the Jesuit Order and studied for three years in Jesuit novitiates in St. Mary's Hall in Lancashire, England, and Frederick County, Maryland.
General Sheman wrote a letter to Cardinal John McCloskey, Archbishop of New York, in 1879 telling him to dissuade his son from such a course of action. However, the Cardinal encouraged the boy in his vocation after visiting with him. In response, the General condemned McCloskey in a St. Louis, Missouri newspaper in offensive terms and accused him of robbing him of a son. When pressed for comment by the newspaper's editor, McCloskey simply replied that General Sherman's letter was marked 'personal and confidential.
He was ordained as priest in 1889 by a friend of his mother's, Cardinal Patrick John Ryan, Archbishop of Philadelphia; and belonged to the Western Province of the Jesuit Order (headquarters in St. Louis). He taught for some years in Jesuit colleges, principally at Saint Louis University and in Detroit.
He presided over General Sherman's funeral mass in 1891, and was in demand as a public lecturer, frequently speaking out against anti-Catholic prejudice in the United States. He obtained a commission as an army chaplain during the Spanish–American War of 1898, without consulting his Jesuit superiors. He served as a military chaplain in the Spanish-American War of 1898, where he was attached to the personal staff (private secretary) of General Ulysses S. Grant, II.
Beginning in 1899, he used St. Ignatius College Prep in Chicago as his base for speaking and writing. While in his mid-fifties, he began experiencing mental problems and long bouts of clinical depression. In 1914, he withdrew from the Jesuit community and lived in various places in Europe and the United States before settling in Santa Barbara, California. In poor physical and mental health, after 1931 he lived with his wealthy niece Eleanor Sherman Fitch in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he died of acute dilation of the heart and arteriosclerosis, at the age of 76. He had renewed his Jesuit vows just shortly before his death.
Father Sherman is buried next to Father John Salter, the nephew of Confederate Vice President Alexander Hamilton Stephens, at St. Charles Borromeo Jesuit Cemetery in Grand Coteau. This is coincidental, (or perhaps not) as Father Salter was the next priest of the local Jesuit community to be buried there.
References:
1. McNamara, Pat. "General Sherman's Jesuit Son", Patheos, August 22, 2011
2. Hollingsworth, Gerelyn. "Gen. Sherman's Son", National Catholic Reporter, September 20, 2011
3. "Father Sherman Sent to Asylum in California", Toledo News-Bee, 21 September 1911, p. 10
4. The Death of Willie Sherman, Thom Bassett, New York Times, 12 October 2013
Name Reverend Thomas E. Sherman
Gender Male
Age 76
Birth Year about 1857
Death Date 29 April 1933
Death Place Orleans, Lousiana, USA
Volume Number 204
Page Number 2196
New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S., Death Records Index, 1804-1949
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Rev. Fr. Thomas Ewing Sherman, S.J.'s Timeline
| 1856 |
October 12, 1856
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San Francisco, San Francisco County, California, United States
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| 1933 |
April 29, 1933
Age 76
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Grand Coteau, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, United States
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| ???? |
Jesuit Cemetery, Grand Coteau, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, United States
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