With Father Flanagan, Founder of Boys Town

Among the greatest marks of his personality was that he knew how to love, and for this people of every class loved him!

Eddie Flanagan was born in Ireland on July 13, 1886, and was the frailest member of a large family. Even so, he spent part of his boyhood tending his father's sheep, and they nicknamed him 'the bookworm,' because he would not part with the stories of Scott and Dickens even in the fields. His mother always took him with her to the village church, and one day she stopped to talk with the priest, who passed his fingers over the little boy's hair as if prophesying, and said: 'He will become a priest one day.'

The years passed swiftly, and Eddie did not forget what had rung in his ear. Whenever the matter of his future was discussed, he would declare his single aim: he wanted to become a priest. No one opposed him in this; his mother, indeed, believed that he was born to be one.

Few men have faced the obstacles that stood in the way of Eddie Flanagan, and his unceasing struggle to attain his ambitions in the service of religion was the ladder of his ascent. He pursued his studies for four years in Sligo, and by the time he reached eighteen he had finished; at the same time he had experienced the harsh system, far removed from the love for which a boy of delicate feeling like himself longed, and had tasted the atmosphere of institutions and found it soulless. Even so, he graduated with distinction!

It was expected that he would go to Dublin to complete the study of theology there, but the situation changed with the coming of his elder sister, Nellie Flanagan, who was emigrating to New York — and why should Eddie not go with her and finish his studies there? So the sister proposed, and his parents did not object to sending him, in 1904. In New York the young Flanagan became a discoverer of the misery strewn along the breadth of the streets. He had come to know poverty in his own country, but not in such abundance nor of such harshness. 'I used to look at the boys of the alleys with a sorrowful eye,' he would say. 'They were strong, despite the scantiness of their food, like any other boy — so where were they to show that strength? The street was their playground, and they had no occupation but the expression of their mischief, their bad conduct, and their vagrancy. Is it any wonder that they were wretched, and without morals?' This feeling went on sinking deep into his life, and the years followed one another only to add to his bitterness, his despair, and his distraction of mind. His road toward ordination as a priest took shape, and his first struggle was at college, to obtain the certificate that would qualify him to enter the seminary of Dunwoodie. At the seminary he labored continuous hours at exhausting study, and in his free hours he went about among the hospitals for consumptives in the city. Then came the terrible hour when he found that he himself had been stricken by the malignant disease, and this time he set himself to fight to save his lungs. Even this did not stop him or weaken his resolve: he would stay in bed and go on with his studies, and he passed his examinations with distinction — but he paid the price dearly. The doctors ordered him to move west, where the pure air would help him regain his health, so he traveled to Omaha — the city to which the boys would later flock, seeking a refuge and seeking Eddie Flanagan. There he rested, and there he met a spiritual superior who strengthened his resolve to pursue his aims. At the end of that summer he went to Rome — the utmost ambition of a student of theology, but for Eddie it was the opposite: he lost even this attempt, for his health could not bear the climate, and he saw that if he stayed he would lose his life. So he turned back to Omaha in 1908, to fill a clerk's post in one of the companies — but he did not lose his faith. Two years later his doctor gave him a report enabling him to resume his studies, and he chose to return to Europe to finish his preparation for the priesthood at the University of Innsbruck, where the pure air helped him.

In the summer of 1912 Eddie knelt before the altar to vow his life to the service of the King of Peace — at last he was a priest! He celebrated Mass the next morning, then made up his mind to return to Omaha, and six months after his return he became assistant to the head of its church. This brought him closer than ever to the poor, the sick, and those in need of spiritual consolation. In 1913 the poor farmers came in from the western country and found the harvests meager — where were they to turn, with no shelter and no money? They needed help, and Father Flanagan, the young priest, answered the call. Here began his idea of establishing a hotel; the parish helped him, and he received aid from some comrades; then he searched for a building to be rented in return for its repair. His answer to certain scoffers, who did not believe in his success, was: 'Faith, my brother, is my capital.'

He went out to the idle and the homeless and told them that he had made a dwelling for them. The hotel consisted of two floors, and a hundred men came to it the day after his invitation; they set to work repairing some of the ruined places, and within days the hotel was ready, registering fifty-seven guests in the first week. Here Father Flanagan turned again to thinking that a larger hostel must be found to shelter anyone in need — and indeed he found a hotel with room for hundreds of workingmen, and soon it was serving food to five hundred workers every night. Sometimes small children would visit him, and these created a new problem, so he set up sleeping rooms on the upper floor reserved for the young — and these were the seed of Boys Town. He thought of saving these unfortunates from a life of crime, and began attending the juvenile trials, following the news of their offenses, and informing himself of everything, until he was convinced that what they lacked was love and tenderness. So he began to care for them and show them affection; often he would walk with them and talk with them as a friend, and go so far as to persuade them that they would become good men. He found that he needed to give this matter all his time — indeed, that he must devote his very life to it — and so he had to give up the hotel, which belonged to the parish. His religious superior consented, but he was unable to supply him with money — and here miracles played their part in the creation of that town. The priest looked about him and saw that all the capital he possessed was five boys, three nuns, and some assistance in foodstuffs from benefactors. The number of his guests began to grow day by day, and to them he stood in the place of father, mother, and teacher. On Christmas Eve he had twenty-five boys, and they all gathered merrily for supper while he ladled the food onto their plates, sowing steadiness in their troubled souls!

The year passed, and the house grew too small for its inhabitants, so the Father was obliged to find a larger house, and they all moved to a spacious lodging surrounded by gardens and playgrounds. The assistance kept increasing, and he did not marvel at it, for he was sure of himself and full of faith. One night there came to him a young woman with a child of eight; her husband had left her and no longer gave a thought to his son — could the Father take him? He looked at the boy and his heart filled with pity, and he granted the request of the wronged wife, who kissed her boy and departed. When he told the boy to stand up, the child stayed where he was and answered: 'I cannot, Father!..' The poor thing was a cripple. He comforted him, saying: 'Never mind — you will be happy with us. I shall call one of your big brothers to carry you to his room, and you will stay here. Would you like that, my dear?'

The story of this boy became the basis of the town's emblem: the picture of a big boy carrying a crippled child, and beneath it written these words: 'He is not heavy, Father — he is my brother!'

Such was the spirit that filled the whole atmosphere of Boys Town. His firm belief was that there are no worthless children — it is the parents and the environment that are the cause! And so he succeeded by his faith and his determination, overcoming every obstacle. He asked for help at public meetings through the lips of his boys, and the women of Omaha helped him by collecting donations. Today you may see Boys Town a town in truth, recognized by the government of the United States: it has its own post office, a newspaper, baths, a secondary school, and a farm of its own — a self-sufficient district whose government is made up of the boys themselves, who elect the officials and punish those who disturb security and order!

It is not the buildings that have immortalized the name of Flanagan: in his lifetime he saved hundreds of boys from crime and from a life of misery — some of them were killers, though they had not yet reached adolescence — and he treated them with love and tenderness. He sheltered the homeless, the outcast, and the orphaned, and thereby rendered signal services to society and to humanity, for some of them today hold high positions.

At the end of the war the government sent him to travel around the world, counseling the educators in the stricken countries, and death took him by surprise, after a heart attack, in Berlin in 1948 — from all the hardships he had borne and the despair and failure he had met. He died a few hours later, and the last word he uttered was 'Amen.' His body was carried back to Boys Town, which he had founded in America!