Illustration · An imagined ballpark bench on a summer afternoon about 1916: a catcher’s pillow mitt and a wire mask leaning on the backrest, a ball, and a folded Globe-Democrat. Not drawn from a photograph.

Two tryouts

Before he was Father Ed he was Puggy Dowling: a catcher who tried out for two big-league clubs, a cub reporter and, for the last two weeks of the war, a private.

“…good enough to qualify for tryouts with both the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Browns, though neither gave him a contract.”

AA’s newsletter, looking back · Box 4-5-9, August–September 2006

Puggy

Edward Patrick Dowling was born in St. Louis on September 1, 1898, the oldest of five children. The family lived in Baden, on the city’s north side, in what AA’s newsletter calls a German working-class neighborhood, though the Dowlings were Irish. His father’s family had come over from Ireland, in 1847 by AA’s newsletter’s count and shortly before the Civil War by Glenn C.’s, and prospered; Glenn C. says his grandfather started a railroad construction company, which Ed’s father ran. At school he got the nickname Puggy, for his pug nose.

He went to Holy Name parish school and spent three years at St. Louis Academy, the Jesuit high school now called St. Louis University High. Through his high school years he spent his summers at factory work, which he made a point of later, Glenn C. writes, as a man who knew working people. On the ballfield he was a catcher. In the summer of 1916 he traveled around playing semi-pro ball in exhibition games, and he tried out for two major league clubs, the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Browns. Neither signed him.

He went on to St. Mary’s College, a Jesuit school in Kansas, where, AA’s newsletter says, he captained the baseball team, and then to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat as a reporter, at about ten dollars a week. In October 1918 his brother James, fifteen and a student at St. Mary’s, died in the influenza pandemic. On October 28 Ed went into the Army as a private, two weeks before the war ended.

Then, one night in 1919, at an all-night café where Globe-Democrat reporters went, he announced that he was entering the Jesuit seminary at Florissant the next morning. A newspaper friend drove him out. He was twenty-one. The four years before that are set out in Before the Jesuits.

Listen Two tryouts About 1 minute

One start after another

Before the Jesuits

Between seventeen and twenty-one he tried a ballfield, a college, a newsroom and the Army before he settled on the Jesuits. Here they are in order, with how sure the sources are.

Two sources tell these years in detail: AA’s newsletter Box 4-5-9 (2006) and Glenn C.’s draft biography (2015). They don’t always agree, and the cards say where. Quotations are short excerpts.

Summer 1916

The catcher

Semi-pro ball in exhibition games, and tryouts with two major league clubs, the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Browns.

Neither club gave him a contract.

Glenn C., 2015; Box 4-5-9, 2006

1916–1918

The college man

St. Mary’s College, a Jesuit school in Kansas. AA’s newsletter says he was captain and catcher of the baseball team. Glenn C. puts his two years there in 1916–18, though only “presumably.”

His brother James, a student there, died of influenza in October 1918.

Box 4-5-9, 2006; Glenn C., 2015

1917–1918

The reporter

The St. Louis Globe-Democrat, at about ten dollars a week. AA’s newsletter has him there from 1917 to 1918; Glenn C. calls it a brief job in 1918, and says he went back to it after the Army.

He kept his newspaper friends all his life.

Box 4-5-9, 2006; Glenn C., 2015; Chicago Catholic, 2023

October 28, 1918

The private

He went into the Army two weeks before the war ended. Glenn C. thinks he then spent about six months in a student army training program at St. Louis University.

Then he went back to the Globe-Democrat, briefly.

Glenn C., 2015

1919

The novice

An announcement at an all-night café, a drive out to the Jesuit seminary at Florissant the next morning, and two years as a novice.

Seventeen years to his final vows. The Queen’s Work tells them.

Glenn C., 2015; Box 4-5-9, 2006

Once a newsman

He never stopped reading the papers. As a Jesuit he would keep a bulletin board of news items, speak from newspaper cuttings and belong to the National Press Club. The Queen’s Work tells how.

For a closer look

Go deeper

A year AA’s newsletter gives him that the calendar can’t fit, the autumn his brother died, and the shirt he wore to the seminary.

A year at Medill?

AA’s newsletter says he spent a year at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism before he entered the novitiate in 1919. Glenn C.’s draft biography, which follows him summer by summer from 1916, doesn’t mention it, and leaves no year free for it.

There is a bigger problem. Northwestern says its Medill school was founded on February 8, 1921, two years after he became a Jesuit. He may have taken journalism courses somewhere; the sources on hand don’t say where.

October 1918

His brother James, born in 1903, was a student at St. Mary’s College when he died that October, at fifteen, in the influenza pandemic. Ed went into the Army on October 28, about two weeks before the Armistice of November 11. Glenn C. thinks he then served about six months in a student army training program at St. Louis University, and afterward went back to the Globe-Democrat for a short while.

Glenn C. weighs what turned him toward the priesthood: the war, his brother’s death, perhaps the Globe-Democrat’s conservative outlook. Whatever the reasons, he writes, Ed saw fairly quickly that the newspaper was not where God wanted him to spend his life.

The silk shirt

The story has two halves. The Globe-Democrat colleague who drove him to Florissant remembered that Ed “wore his favorite candy-striped silk shirt for the occasion.” Father Ed supplied the rest: a few days later, as Glenn C. retells it, he was startled to see the seminary floors being swabbed with rags, “including his silk shirt.”

He entered St. Stanislaus Seminary in Florissant, outside St. Louis, in 1919. The novitiate lasted two years.

Sources

“Father Ed Dowling — Bill W.’s Confidant and Friend.” Box 4-5-9, August–September 2006. His family, schools, baseball, the Globe-Democrat, the Army and Medill.
Glenn C., Father Ed Dowling: Bill Wilson’s Sponsor. Draft of May 1, 2015, posted in his archive at Indiana University South Bend. Chapter 1 (his family, Baden, schools, factory summers, baseball, the Globe-Democrat, the Army, his brother James, the café and the silk shirt). Quotations are from the online text.
Joyce Duriga, “One Jesuit priest’s effect on Alcoholics Anonymous.” Chicago Catholic, May 17, 2023, on Dawn Eden Goldstein’s biography. His nickname and his newspaper friends.
“Northwestern Medill celebrates its Centennial.” Northwestern Now, February 1, 2021. The school’s founding in 1921.