Rev. Harold E. Thompson, CSV, died Jan. 23, 1966 at Evanston Hospital in Illinois, after suffering a brain hemorrhage while attending a dinner meeting at Seebury Western Theological Seminary in Evanston. He was 50.
Fr. Thompson was born May 9, 1915 in Wolverine, MI. Upper Michigan was home to Fr. Thompson until 1934, when he entered the Viatorian Community in Chicago. Fr. Thompson professed his first vows Sept. 9, 1935 and his perpetual vows on Sept. 9, 1938.
He earned his Bachelor’s degree in 1937 at St. Viator College in Bourbonnais, and for the following two years, he taught at Académie Querbes in the Viatorian Province of Montreal.
Fr. Thompson returned from Canada in 1939 and began his theological studies at Catholic University of America in Washington DC, where he earned his Master’s degree in 1943.
That same year, Fr. Thompson was ordained to the priesthood on Jun. 12, 1943 in Chicago by Archbishop Samuel A. Stritch.
After ordination, Fr. Thompson was assigned to parish work at St. Rose Church in Kankakee, IL. In later years, he taught at St. Gregory High School in Chicago; Spalding Institute in Peoria; and at Lewis College in Lockport, IL.
During the last five years of his life, Fr. Thompson taught theology at Loyola University in Chicago and counseled the Viatorian Scholasticates who lived on Sheridan Road.
When he passed away so suddenly, one of his confreres, Fr. Carl Stratman, CSV, organized a Bible service on Jan. 25 and he also gave a homily. Rev. Charles R. Williams, CSV, celebrated a requiem Mass Jan. 26 at St. Viator Church in Chicago, and the Rev. Joseph Canella, CSV, delivered the homily.
Fr. Thompson was buried in the Viatorian Community plot at Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Hillside, IL, where the Rev. Eugene J. Sullivan, CSV, acting provincial, gave the absolution.
Taken from a press release from the Clerics of St. Viator, dated Jan. 24, 1966