Established 1953
About the Club
A railroad parish, an Art Deco church, and seventy-three years of men who kept showing up.
Beech Grove was two years old when the railroad shops opened and the parish began. The men who filled these pews repaired locomotives for a living, and the club they started in 1953 has always worked the same way — show up, do the job, go home.
The parish
A short history.
The club cannot be separated from the parish that made it. Dates below come from the parish’s own published history and from The Criterion.
- 1907
Father Peter Killian buys the first five lots — the ground the rectory stands on — for $500.
- 1908
Blessed Sacrament Parish is founded on June 24, the same year Big Four Railroad men poured into the two-year-old city to open the locomotive repair shops.
- 1918
The parish takes the name Holy Name.
- 1922
The first school year opens with 53 pupils in two rooms, grades one through eight.
- 1953
The Holy Name Society — the Men's Club — is formed. That November the rectory is moved and the new church's cornerstone is laid.
- 1954
The new church is dedicated on November 1 by Archbishop Schulte. Art Deco outside; stone and marble within, under a white marble corpus.
- 1965
School enrollment peaks at 963 students.
- 1977
Father Hartman retires after 26 years as pastor. The south wing is renamed Hartman Hall in his honor.
- 1990
The Men's Club establishes the August W. “Gus” Seyfried award on April 22 — the parish's Man of the Year.
- 2004
The Parish Life Center is dedicated, in the church building's fiftieth anniversary year.
- 2022
Holy Name School marks its hundredth anniversary.
- 2026
Father Robeson leaves for Greenwood on July 1. Father Jack Wright is appointed administrator of Holy Name and Good Shepherd.
The motto
Bless His Holy
Name Forever.
Psalm 145:21
It is the parish motto, and it is the reason the club carries the name it does. The Holy Name Society is an old devotion — men gathered around reverence for the name of Jesus, and around the ordinary work of a parish.
“The Men’s Club offers opportunities to unite in fellowship for the purpose of developing the religious and social character of its members.”
The club’s own statement of purpose
On paper and in person, the club is the Holy Name Men’s Club.