From the Editor Emeritus / John F. Fink

Eddie Doherty: Newspaperman, author, three marriages, priest

Back in the 1940s, when I was a teenager trying to decide what to do with my life, I read the book Gall and Honey: The Story of a Newspaperman. It was written by Eddie Doherty, who was billed at the time as “America’s Highest Paid Reporter.” I decided I wanted to be a newspaperman. Later, I decided to work for Catholic periodicals.

Eddie Doherty later married Catherine de Hueck, the former Russian baroness who founded Friendship House for poor blacks in Harlem. Then both Eddie and Catherine founded Madonna House in Combermere, Ontario, Canada. Catherine is one of the people in my book Future American Saints?

Eddie was born in Chicago in 1890, the oldest of 10 children in an Irish Catholic family. His father was a police lieutenant. As he grew up, he worked, at one time or another, for five Chicago newspapers. He began writing columns at The American.

In 1914, he married his childhood sweetheart, Marie Ryan. She died in the 1918 flu epidemic, leaving Eddie with their baby son. In his sorrow, he left the Church.

He married a second time, to Mildred Frisby, in 1919. Employed by that time by the Chicago Tribune, he moved his small family west to work for the Tribune’s Hollywood bureau. He made his reputation by covering some sensational scandals and trials. Life was good for Eddie Doherty. He and Mildred had a son.

After three years in Hollywood, Eddie moved his family to New York, where he went to work for Liberty magazine. Then tragedy struck again. In 1939, while out for a walk, Mildred was killed in a freak accident. This time, Eddie found peace for his grieving by returning to the Church. He also wrote Gall and Honey, the book that influenced me.

In 1940, he heard about what Catherine de Hueck was doing in Harlem with Friendship House. He went to Harlem to get the story. He ended up not only writing about Catherine, he fell in love with her. They married in 1943. Later, in 1948, he wrote Catherine’s biography in a book titled Tumbleweed.

In 1944, Eddie’s screenplay for the World War II film The Fighting Sullivans was nominated for an Academy Award.

Eddie’s and Catherine’s marriage didn’t go over well with the staff at Friendship House. When the issue couldn’t be resolved, they moved to Combermere in 1947 and founded Madonna House. It’s a community for both laity and priests committed to living Gospel values. Both Eddie and Catherine wrote articles and books to publicize Madonna House.

Then Eddie discerned a vocation to the priesthood. In 1969, he got permission to transfer from the Latin rite Church to the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, which allows married men to become priests. He went to the Holy Land, where he studied for the priesthood and he was ordained a Catholic priest in 1969 at the age of 78.

He returned to Madonna House after his ordination. He lived and worked there until his death in 1975. A cross on his grave says, “All my words for the Word.” †