Featured Author

Rev. Robert F. McNamara

Steuben Hall of Fame, Class of 1991

Rev. Robert F. McNamara was inducted into the Steuben County Hall of Fame in 1991. Here is the commendation he received:

Reverend Robert Francis McNamara was born in Corning in 1910, the son of Thomas Alexander McNamara and Helen Dwyer. He attended local schools and then Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. (1928-1932); Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, (1932-1933); and the Gregorian University, Rome, (1933-1937). He was ordained a priest in 1936.

Reverend McNamara taught at St. Bernard's Seminary in Rochester for many years; he was on the faculty from 1938 until 1981. He was professor of Church History there, and visiting professor and lecturer at the Toronto School of Theology, Nazareth College, and St. Bernard's Institute. He has held a number of Diocesan offices, was chairman of the Committee on Art and Architecture (1971-1976), and is presently the Archivist of the Diocese of Rochester.

Among the five books on church history that Reverend McNamara has written is A Century of Grace: The History of St. Mary's Roman Catholic Parish, Corning, New York. He has written many articles and pamphlets on church, Rochester, and Southern Tier history that have appeared in historical publications. A series of 70 articles on Corning area history signed "The Old Chronicler" appeared in the Corning Evening Leader.

He is a member of a number of historical associations, and he was the founder and first president of the Corning-Painted Post Historical Society.

Rev. McNamara's most recent book is The Diocese of Rochester in America 1868-1993, Second Edition, Emended and Updated. This new edition adds the quarter century from 1968 to 1993 to Rev. McNamara's acclaimed centennial history of the Diocese of Rochester covering American Catholicism, Western New York history, immigration, parochial school education, and church-state relations examined in a lively narrative by "one of the best historical craftsmen of American Catholicism." The new edition containing many photographs is available from Catholic Courier, P. O. Box 24379, Rochester, NY 14624.

Rev. McNamara has contributed many articles to the Crooked Lake Review. His first articles were about his father, Thomas A. McNamara, MD., in a series beginning in our January 1991 issue, the story of Edmund O'Dwyer and his Henry rifle beginning in November 1991, the history of Corning maestro Charles Corwin beginning in the October 1992 issue, about his own trip to Canada with boyhood friends in 1925 beginning in the October 1993 issue, a piece on Miss Fannie Benjamin in the August 1994 issue, his remembrance of 1925 Corning Saturday evenings in the July 1995 issue, and a thank you to Corning teacher Miss Elizabeth M. Relihan in the December 1995 issue.

Index to articles by Rev. McNamara in the Crooked Lake Review

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