| 1927 Nov 4 |
Date of birth. Although the name "Thomas" has been in continual use in the FitzMaurice families for about 800 years, Tom was undoubtedly named after his maternal grandfather, Thomas Curran. |
| 1933 Sep |
Thomas started in 1st grade at St. Mary of Celle School in Berwyn, Illinois. |
| 1935 | Thomas received his First Holy Communion on Ascension Thursday |
| 1938 | Thomas was Confirmed and took the name of "Vincent". His sponsor was his cousin Thomas Cahill. |
| 1941 Jun | Thomas was graduated from St. Mary of Celle School |
| 1941 Sep |
Thomas started as a freshman in Morton H. S.
He is shown here with his brother Emmett. |
|
1944 Jun 26 |
The photo was taken at Great Lakes in July 1944. |
| 1944 Oct/Nov | Thomas was graduated from the Hospital Corps School in San Diego and was then sent to the U.S. Naval Hospital in Long Beach, CA. |
| 1945 May | Thomas became a member of a land based Navy outfit (Acorn 52, which was formed at Twenty Nine Palms, CA) and shipped out from Port Hueneme CA to Palawan in the Philippine Islands. (Name of ship unknown.) The planned mission of Acorn 52 was to set up a U.S. Naval hospital in southern Japan after the invasion of Japan. The hospital would have been in the Marine Corps area of operations. |
| 1945 Jun | Thomas was assigned to the Marine Corps and became a "Marine Corpsman". |
| 1945 Sep | Thomas went with his outfit and a few hundred Marines (perhaps from the 1st Marine Division) to accept the surrender of the Japanese on Truk in the Caroline Islands. (Name of ship unknown.) After the surrender of Truk on 2 Sep 1945, Thomas remained there for about nine months before returning to the United States to be discharged. On at least one occasion, he went fishing for shark with some Japanese soldiers. |
| 1946 Jun | Thomas sailed back to the United States. (Name of ship unknown.) |
|
1946 Jul 15 |
After about two weeks of medical tests involving his legs, Thomas was discharged from the Navy at Great Lakes and returned home. |
| 1946 Sep | Thomas returned to Morton H. S. for one year. |
| 1947 Jun | Thomas was graduated from Morton H.S. |
| 1947 Sep | Thomas began his first year at St. Procopius College. |
| 1951 Jun |
The photo at the right was probably taken during this era. |
| 1952 Sep |
Thomas began studying at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. He remained there for one academic year. While there, Thomas played the role of stage manager in a student production of "The Skin of Our Teeth" by Thornton Wilder. He was also the actual stage manager for the play. |
| 1954 Jan | Thomas began teaching part time at Georgetown University while continuing his studies at Catholic University. Although his title was Instructor of English, he taught Public Speaking. |
| 1954 Sep |
Thomas began teaching full time at
Georgetown with the added work of being Coach of the three debate
teams at Georgetown. One of his freshman debaters was Antonin Scalia who later became a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. |
| 1955 Summer | Thomas returned home and worked for Victor Adding Machine Company in their downtown Chicago office. |
| Early 1956 | Thomas began as salesman for the Helene Curtis company. His territory was all of Michigan except for the Detroit area, the St. Joseph area, and the Upper Peninsula. While working in Michigan, Thomas resided in Grand Rapids. |
|
1958 Jun 23 |
Thomas entered the monastery at St. Procopius as a Novice and left home permanently. |
|
1959 Jun 24 |
Thomas took triennial vows as a monk of St. Procopius. |
| 1963 May 25 |
Thomas was ordained as Terence T. FitzMaurice, O.S.B. My notes made the day before the
ordination are as follows: 12:10 pm Sun First Mass St. Mary
of Celle Benediction at 7:00 pm.
There were two young nuns named
FitzMaurice at one of the events in the Parish Hall. I understood
from my mother's description that they were descended from a
brother of my father's father. M3.2.6 Anne Marie FitzMaurice (b.
2 Jun 1938)
|
| 1963—1967 |
 Father
Terence taught at St. Procopius Academy (later named Bennet Academy). |
| c. May 1967 to May 1968 | Father Terence was sent to Mexico for about a year to learn to speak Spanish before being assigned to St. Procopius Parish in Chicago. |
| 1968 May |
Father Terence began living at St. Procopius Parish in the "Pilsen" area of Chicago. He served as Associate Pastor. The pastor was Rev. Charles Kolek, O.S.B. Terence "walked the streets of the Pilsen area looking for troubled young people" that he could help. He ran "summer food programs that served 1,000 meals a day to poor children". He had "a summer youth program that employed between three and six hundred teens". He worked "at the Juvenile Court helping young people in trouble". |
|
Father Terence served as Pastor of St. Procopius Parish for about three years after Father Charles retired. During this period he transferred a building next to the rectory to Mother Teresa of Calcutta (with the permission of the cardinal). She used it to house her nuns.
|
|
| Father Terence became Pastor of St. Patrick Parish and soon also Pastor of St. Mary Parish, both in Phillips WI. | |
| 1988 |
Miracle of the Altar Boy On December 12, 1988, Father Terence FitzMaurice wrote his annual Christmas letter. At that time, Father Terence was the Pastor of St. Patrick's Church in Phillips Wisconsin. The following is an excerpt from that letter. "A most remarkable thing happened here a few weeks ago that I wanted to share with you. One Thursday evening, the mother of one of my nine year old altar boys told me she wanted prayers for him. The doctors felt that he had cancer in his right eye. They were to operate on Monday morning at the University of Minnesota hospital. The next morning, a Friday, he was serving the Mass. After the Mass I announced to the people present the condition of the boy's eye. And I told them that we would pray for him then and there. So we prayed that through the intercession of our Blessed Mother and by the suffering of Jesus on the cross, God would heal this young boy. That Sunday was the solemnity of Christ the King. But when I said the Masses, I told the people that I was not going to use the prayers from that Mass. Instead, I used the prayers from the Votive Mass for the sick. And I changed all the intentions that had been scheduled for that Sunday and already listed in the Bulletin. And all Masses were for his intention. And I explained to the people that I wanted them to bombard heaven with prayers asking that the boy be healed. The operation took place on Monday morning. Later that day his mother called to fill me in on all that had happened. The doctor who is the head of the department at the university told her to prepare herself for the worst since they felt that surely the eye would have to be removed. But just ten or fifteen minutes after they started the operation, the doctor came out to tell the mother that a most remarkable thing had happened that they had never in their experience seen before. When he put the knife to the growth it just kind of dissolved and fell apart. They took it and did a biopsy just to be sure; but the doctor told her the eye was now perfect. Needless to say, all of us are convinced that God surely was listening to someone's prayers. It was a beautiful experience." |
 St. Patrick Parish and St. Mary Parish
were merged by Father Terence into one parish named Our Lady
of the North Parish. During his mission in Phillips, Father Terence began to paint. An example of his artistic accomplishment is hanging on the wall behind him in this photo. |
|
| Because of poor health, Father Terence had to leave his parish in Phillips. He is now retired to the monastery in Lisle IL. | |
|
Sunday 25 May 2003 |
Father Terence celebrated the fortieth anniversary of his ordination with a mass at St. Procopius Church in Chicago. His former parishioners greeted him with great enthusiasm. |
Father
Terence was a skillful boxer. He started in about the second
grade and continued to box until he finished high school.
Having
completed three years of high school, At the age of 16, Thomas misstated his age
as 18 and volunteered for immediate induction. He
was drafted, left for the Recruit Depot at Great Lakes, and began active duty with the U.S. Navy
. 
Thomas
was graduated from St. Procopius with a major in English and
Philosophy. He then lived at home while working several months
for Western Electric as a Business Methods Engineer and then
at Taylor Forge Company as a Sales Correspondent.
This photo shows Father Terence with his proud
mother at the dinner following his first mass.
The
Dominican nuns are in white. The nun in black is Terence's Aunt
Veronica.
The
photo (taken in 1978) shows Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, Father
Terence, and Mother Teresa just after their meeting during which
agreement was reached to give the building to Mother Teresa.