Rev. Maurice A. Dailey, CSV, died Nov. 7, 1970 at St. Alexis Hospital, now called Alexian Brothers Medical Center, in Elk Grove Village, IL. He had been in ill health for a year prior to his passing.
Fr. Dailey was born March 22, 1911 on a farm near Urbana, Ohio. His family then moved to Penfield, IL where he attended parochial school, before they moved to Kankakee, where he attended St. Patrick High School.
He joined the Clerics of St. Viator in 1932 and pronounced his first vows Sept. 8, 1933, and his final vows on Sept. 8, 1936. He was ordained to the priesthood Feb. 24, 1939 at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC.
Fr. Dailey graduated in 1935 from St. Viator College in Bourbonnais. He went on to earn a graduate degree at Catholic University of America in Washington DC and did additional graduate work in education at DePaul University in Chicago.
Not surprisingly, much of Fr. Dailey’s ministry was spent in schools, particularly high schools. He taught at Nazareth Academy in LaGrange, IL; St. Philip, Mount Carmel and St. Gregory high schools in Chicago; Spalding High School in Peoria and Marian Catholic High School in Chicago Heights. He also taught at St. Francis College in Joliet, IL and Fournier Institute in Lemont, IL.
Fr. Daily also served as chaplain for the Peoria and Chicago Heights’ councils of the Knights of Columbus, and for nearly 20 years, he assisted on Sundays at Our Lady’s Chapel of St. Margaret Mary Parish in Chicago.
A wake service was held Nov. 10 at Theis Funeral Home in Chicago with Fr. Eugene Mierzwinski, CSV, giving the homily. Nearly 500 visitors paid their last respects to Fr. Dailey during the day and evening.
The following morning, on Nov. 11, a Requiem Mass was sung at St. Viator Church in Chicago. The Rev. Edward C. Anderson, CSV, provincial, was the celebrant and he also gave the homily.
Fr. Dailey was laid to rest in the Viatorian plot at Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Hillside, IL.
Taken from a press release dated Nov. 8, 1970 from the Viatorian Community and a Provincial Residence Newsletter dated Nov. 20, 1970