Version of Slominski article from 2009
Slominski, Casimir, Rev.
(Mar. 1, 1864 - Sept. 7, 1928)
Priest and playwrightWhen Charles Frank Slominski was two years old, his father, Stanislaus, who was born in Poznan, Poland, in April of 1838, moved with his mother, Waleria, 24 years old, and one-year-old sister, Angola, to Chicago, Illinois, where he would manufacture picture frames and moldings and in the end sell church goods. He studied for the priesthood at the seminary of Father Dabrowski in Detroit, Berlin, Canada, and Rome, Italy, and was ordained in 1890 in Chicago.
Starting out as an assistant at St. Joseph's, the seventh Polish parish in Chicago, his next assignment was to organize a Polish parish in Joliet, Illinois, where in 1900 almost 500 persons were from Poland and found jobs in quarries, wire mills, coke plants, stove companies and other industries. After the Chicago fire of 1871, it shipped plenty of stone to Chicago and other cities to build churches and other buildings. Shortly after Father Slominski arrived in Joliet, forty miles southwest of Chicago, about 29.1 percent of the 29,353 people were foreign born and 32.9 percent were children of foreign parentage. He built Holy Cross Church, a small but comfortable house of worship, to serve the growing Polish population.
In the meantime, Polish Catholics in the Hawthorne neighborhood of Cicero, just outside Chicago, many of whom worked in a quarry, longed for a parish of their own. For many years, while Cicero was still a prairie, they walked five miles to hear Polish Mass at St. Adalbert's Church in Chicago and then, in 1890, when St. Casimir's Church was built, it was three and a half miles closer to home. After buying a site for a church, the group sent a delegation to Archbishop Patrick A. Feehan for permission to establish a Polish parish. The archbishop appointed Father Casimir Slominski as their pastor. Beginning May 30, 1895, he celebrated Mass and administered the Sacraments in a makeshift hall until Our Lady of Czestochowa Church was built. It was one of the most beautiful churches in the suburbs of Chicago and was compared with St. Adalbert's in Chicago. Transfiguration in Buffalo, and St. Florian's in Hamtramck, Michigan. More recently, the parish unveiled a sculpture of Christ the King, designed by Czeslaw Dzwigaj, a sculptor and artist of sacred art from Nowy Wisnicz, Poland, in front of St. Mary of Czestochowa in Cicero. In 1898, however, Father Slominski resigned as pastor of the parish on account of poor health.
Much to the surprise of his mother, who ran a millinery store in Chicago, and others, on March 3, 1903, Archbishop James F. Quigley handed him the assignment of putting up St. Ann's Church on the southwest corner of 18th Place and Leavitt Street in Chicago to take care of the Polish families who moved out of the district of St. Adalbert's Church. The cornerstone of the church and school, 142 long and 75 feet wide, was laid June 7, 1903, and the work was dedicated on November 8, 1903. R. Berlin, one of the best architects in Chicago, designed an impressive building with a church on the ground floor, a school on the second, a hall on the third, and living quarters for the Sisters of the Nazareth on the top floor.
St. Ann's parish had its own dramatic group. The pastor of the parish wrote numerous plays which were staged in the parish hall. The best of his plays, "Sw. Dorota," was also staged in other halls. Proceeds were given to the parishes where it was played. For eighteen years he was pastor of St. Ann's and was named pastor emeritus in 1921. The following year he toured Holland, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, and Germany. He remained at St. Mary of Nazareth hospital in Chicago until his death on September 7, 1928.
From: Edward Pinkowski (2009)