Parish History
The present Church of St. Mary in Lake Forest was dedicated by James Quigley on December 11, 1910. At that time, a newborn baby boy was baptized and called Barry after the pastor, the Reverend Francis J. Barry.
Prior to that time, St. Mary's had been a mission of a little log church built in the western area of Lake Forest in 1844. By 1875, a group of thirty families from Lake Forest and Lake Bluff formed the new parish of St. Mary's. In 1908, their little white frame church at Illinois and Green Bay Roads was pronounced in danger of collapse, even after the steeple was removed and the walls braced from the outside.
The parish grew, adding buildings with the times. The original rectory was built in 1876. The old school, which now houses our Junior High Grades and the Science, Music and Art Labs, was dedicated on September 23, 1917. The present school and gym were opened September 7, 1958. The convent, opened on March 19, 1950, is now the Parish Center and contains a chapel, ministry offices and meeting rooms of various sizes.
Families continued to move into Lake Forest. Many homes had been built by 1929. In the early 1930's - the Great Depression era - some families doubled up but few moved from the area. After World War II, in the late 1940's, many families moved into the region. But it was the "building boom" of the 1950's and 60's that attracted large numbers to the area, among them families with young children who enrolled in St. Mary's School.
This history was told to me by the little fellow baptized here in 1910 - Barry Fitzgerald. He has been a lifelong parishioner and states that the last fifteen to twenty years have been the very best of all his years in St. Mary's parish.
Today is .