Campus Life

Campus Life this month tells the poignant story of the bricks used to build the Memorial Door at the Sacred Heart Basilica. It's an excerpt from the 1925 Dome. Also, we have included some background information on the Memorial Door from Notre Dame The Official Campus Guide by Damaine Vonada.

From the Dome, 1925:

The Story of the Memorial Door:

Not so many years ago at Notre Dame, there congregated almost daily, in the rear of Science Hall, groups of happy fellows. They were youths as we are and talked of much the same things. Of the present mostly, but of the future, too; just as quietly, just as anxiously as we do now.

Initials scratched into the bricks of the old building gave mute evidence of lulls in the conversation or periods of reluctant listening while another held forth with some story. A rumor, perhaps, of more liberal permissions in the future or fact of athletic prowess. Sometimes these stories must have been very long if entire hieroglyphic autographs bear true witness and sometimes a bell for class or meals must have interrupted for some of the names are broken off in the middle...meaningless groups of markings.

One day came with a real topic for conversation. There was a war . It was to be a glorious fight for peace and these who knew so much tranquility at Notre Dame were to go forth with the ideal in their hearts and minds to make the world know something of it, too.

After the war some returned. To those who did not the Memorial Door to Sacred Heart Church was erected as a tribute to their sacrifices.

When the Memorial was planned it was decided to build it of material which would harmonize with the weathered bricks of the church, and as an addition was being built at the time, on the rear of Science Hall, the bricks removed from that building were used.in the erection of the door .

Not until after the Memorial was completed, was the fact which lends such a romance unique to memorials disclosed. It was found that the names of many of the men to whom the Door was dedicated were scratched into the bricks by the men themselves, in the old days when they congregated in back of Science Hall and talked of much the same things as we do now.

And now, from The Campus Guide:

On Sacred Heart's east facade, the Memorial Door has become famous for its motto, "God, Country, Notre Dame." It honors the men of Notre Dame who died in World War I and was the precursor of the Clarke Memorial Fountain on North Quad. The doorway's Gothic trappings also anticipated the South Quad, for it was designed by Francis Kervick and Vincent Fagan, the university architects whose mastery of the style produced many of the wonderful buildings erected there in the 1920s and 1930s. The armor-clad statues flanking the doorway were done by art professor Rev. John Bednar, C.S.C. They represent two defenders of the faith: Joan of Arc, patron saint of France, and Michael the Archangel, patron saint of soldiers. Just inside the doorway, you'll notice a light fixture made from an army helmet that was worn by Rev. Charles O'Donnell, C.S.C., who served as a chaplain during World War I and later became president of Notre Dame.