Multnomah-Statewide-Curry County OR Archives Biographies.....O'Farrell, Rev. Joseph M. April 7, 1877 - 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Ila L. Wakley iwakley@msn.com May 31, 2010, 7:21 pm

Source: History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Vol. III, Published 1928, Pages 370 - 371
Author: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company

     REV. JOSEPH M. O'FARRELL,  pastor of St. Rose Catholic church of Portland 
since 1915, has enjoyed the support and cooperation of his parishioners in 
unusual degree. A native of Ontario, Canada, he was born April 7, 1877, his 
parents being Andrew and Johanna (Fitzgerald) O'Farrell. He has one brother, 
James, who is a retired merchant residing at Eugene, Oregon.

     Father O'Farrell began his education in a parochial school in the 
vicinity of Toronto, Ontario, and subsequently attended La Salle Normal 
College of Toronto. Thereafter he made his way across the border into the 
United States and with the hope of benefiting his health took up his abode in 
Montana, where he taught school and worked as a surveyor. He also engaged in 
teaching in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was in 1901 that he came to Oregon and 
began teaching and studying at Mount Angel. In the fall of the same year 
Archbishop Christie opened Columbia University in Portland and Father 
O'Farrell entered the institution, studying and teaching for two years. He 
next spent a winter at the Grand Seminary of Montreal, Canada, but finding the 
climate decidedly detrimental to his health, returned to Mount Angel, where he 
completed his theological course and was ordained to the priesthood on the 3d 
of February, 1906. He engaged in pastoral work at Eugene for five years, 
continued his priestly labors at Medford and next at Woodburn and in 1915 took 
charge of St. Rose parish in Portland, where he has since remained. The parish 
at that time numbered about one hundred families and at present includes more 
than five hundred families. The present church and school building were 
completed in 1925 at a cost of about one hundred and ten thousand dollars. The 
school was started with six pupils in 1913 and is now under the supervision of 
six teachers who are Sisters of the Holy Child. The church has a seating 
capacity of six hundred and fifty. The buildings are of the most modern and up-
to-date type and the schoolhouse is a fireproof structure. One assistant 
priest aids Father O'Farrell, whose consecrated labors have been crowned with 
success as his parish has grown in spiritual and numerical strength.

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