It was an announcement which plunged the entire City of Sidney into deep mourning. Word spread around the town quickly on November 15, 1909. Father Francis Quatman, the beloved priest of the Holy Angels church, had died.
Franceis Quatman was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on December 10, 1850. He was one of three brothers. His siblings, August M, and Joseph M. Quatman, also became priests. Francis studied at the St, Joseph’s Parochial School in Cincinnati then graduated with high honors from St. Xavier University in the Queen City. He immediately began studying theology at Mt. St. Mary’s of the West. His progression in the faith was rapid. Father Quatman received minor orders in 1873, a sub-deaconship in 1874, followed in the same year with a deaconship and his ordination as priest.
After a stint as an assistant pastor of the St. Peter’s Church in Chillicothe, where he stayed 13 months, Father Quatman was appointed priest in Sidney at Holy Angels on April 5, 1875. It was there he stayed until his untimely death at the age of 58. In 1905, he was also given the charge of the Sidney Deanery, where he oversaw operations of fifty churches in the counties of Auglaize, Darke, Hardin, Logan, Mercer, Marion, Miami and Shelby counties.
Father Quatman was without question the catalyst for Catholic education in Sidney. Historians consider him the patron saint of this community’s Catholic school tradition.
He arrived in Sidney in 1875, and according to a commentary of the time, “at once went to work with an iron will.” His leadership galvanized the Catholic community and the school staff. He orchestrated the arrival of the “Four Sisters of Charity,” who moved here in the fall of 1875. Sisters Angelica, Anna Agnes, Margaret Cicilla and Odilla took over the teaching in the school and transformed it. A December 1875 Sidney Journal article noted:
“They are passing through life quietly, doing good in secret; but he who notes the fall of the sparrow will not permit their disinterested services to go unrequited. They are, indeed, as their name implies,
‘Sisters of mercy.’”
Father Quatman created a vision for local Catholic education that drew immediate support. He proposed and had constructed a separate school building, with two floors, four classrooms, a basement and a library. It was finished for the then significant sum of $4,756. One hundred twelve students entered the building that fall, and attendance steadily climbed after that, reaching 185 by 1883. R. S. Sutton, the county’s first biographer in 1883 noted that, even then, the school was supported by a monthly tuition along with the church collection and donations. For the poor families, “No charge is made.”
Father Quatman also provided the vision for a new church. A building committee was formed in the fall of 1890 and a grand plan was laid out for a magnificent edifice. The cornerstone was laid on April 26, 1891, with over 5,000 people present from all over the Miami Valley. One million bricks were used to build what was at that time one of the finest Catholic churches in western Ohio- “The Church of the Holy Angels.”
Father Quatman was beloved by his parishioners at Holy Angels for his leadership and compassion. They celebrated his twenty-fifth anniversary as a priest in 1899 with the following statement in a commemorative booklet: “On taking charge of Holy Angels church he found the congregation involved in debt, disorganized, divided by national prejudices with the children attending different schools. He began the task of correcting this condition by saying that he recognized no nationality other than American. The congregation must be one in Catholicism, and national differences could and should have no place in it.”
Perhaps his single biggest contribution to mankind in general and our community in particular occurred in 1894. He forged extraordinary relationships with his parishioners, and none closer than with the Weitzel family. As Sohpia Weitzel lay on her deathbed in 1894, Father Quatman promised he would raise her only son, eighteen month-old George, as his own. George B. Quatman, the adopted son of Father Francis Quatman, was educated in the Holy Angels School and went on to use that education to do much to make his adopted father proud.
George Quatman, inventor, entrepreneur and philanthropist, formed the Lima Telephone Company and many other businesses. He was granted an estimated 150 patents. Mr. Quatman maintained frequent contact with Sidney, but more importantly, he never forgot the Catholic history and traditions imbued in him by his adopted father.
George Quatman also helped locate the ruins and paid for the renovation of the House of the Virgin Mary in Ephesus, Turkey. It is recognized by the Vatican as a shrine. He paid for the construction and his foundation maintains to this day important Catholic shrines and statues at over twenty locations throughout the world. Included in those is the twenty-foot tall statue of Our Lady of Fatima at St. Mary’s Point overlooking Indian Lake.
In a sense, Father Francis Quatman is still watching out over his parishioners. A stained glass window dedicated in his memory graces the Holy Angels Church, and the statue of Our Lady of Ephesus (the Virgin Mary) on the Lehman High School campus was conceived and paid for by his beloved adopted son, George, and the foundation established to carry on his commitment to his faith.