 Fr.
Gregory Harry Anderson, O.P.
Though born in Alhambra, Harry Anderson was a son of the San
Joaquin Valley and the Sierra foothills. His father had a cattle ranch near Humphrey’s, at the 1000 ft.
level, and Harry went to school in Tollhouse and in Auberry. In the summer he and his father would drive
the cattle up to sweeter grass near Huntington Lake, at the 7000 ft. level.
What other
arduous journeys? Let him speak:
“I am a convert
from a Southern Baptist persuasion. I received the gift of faith like a bolt from the blue one day when I
was 17 years old while reading Matthew 16:
18. And I say
also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church: and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it. 19. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and
whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth
shall be loosed in heaven.
I was as
convinced then as I am now that the Catholic Church is the only one founded by Jesus Christ and is the
only source of divine Truth we have. It took a little doing to get me into the Church, but with the
guidance of the Holy Spirit and the encouragement of my dear Baptist mother I made it and here I am to
stay. I also have had the great privilege of receiving both my mother and her mother into the Church.”
Harry Anderson
became Brother Gregory at Ross in Mann County in 1941, and was a student brother at St. Albert’s from 1942
to 1949.
Father Gregory
spent an average of three years as Pastor or Assistant in San Francisco. Pittsburg, Berkeley (twice),
Eagle Rock (twice), and also in Nevada and Utah.
The Nevada
experience was in Reno 1960-61. There was a diocesan community of brothers that wanted to be Dominicans.
Gregory was sent to be their novice master and was made pastor of St. Albert the Great parish. He
described it as “a very difficult assignment.”
Having survived
that, Gregory was flipped from the flying pan into the fire as Master of Student Brothers at St. Albert’s
1961-1964.
On December 20,
1966, the Master of the Order personally assigned Gregory as Pastor and Superior in Berkeley “...because
he wanted someone at St. Mary Magdalen’s who was favorable to the Berkeley Priory and the Dominican School
of Philosophy and Theology that was just being founded. He knew that I was favorable enough to want to
join the Priory.” In 1968 Gregory did join Berkeley Priory.
From 1971 to
1977 Gregory was the first Dominican director of the Newman Center at University California Riverside.
“That was the most fulfilling and fruitful period of my time as a priest.”
In 1977 he asked
to be allowed to help Fr. Joe Valine in Utah, and he became pastor of St. Christopher’s parish in Kanab,
but “I found that I could not take being alone without a community of my fellow Dominicans.” Then he
joined our community at St. Dominic’s Priory, Eagle Rock.
He later spent
two years as chaplain to the senior community of Christian Brothers at Mont La Salle, Napa. He spent his
senior days at our communities in San Francisco and Portland, whence he passed far beyond the 7000 ft.
level. His body is buried in Benicia.
Though far from
shy, Gregory was intensely private. I had known him since I was 17, during the months of his first
priestly work in 1949; he was my first American friend; we had lived together in Eagle Rock; yet before I
could get his conversion story out of him in the I 990s, it took many evenings and many very enjoyable
dinners (“Waiter, I said a dry Bob Roy, puh-leeze!”)
Oh, many
anecdotes, many opinions, some theory, some anathemas, but little self-revelation. He was a Dominican.
May this good
man now rest with God where he will no longer need that strong faith and wistful hope that kept him ever
bound for the higher ground.
---Finbarr Hayes,
0. P.
Please pray for the repose of the soul of Fr. Gregory Anderson, OP who
passed away on the morning of August 3, 2004.
The arrangements for the Portland, Oregon services are
the Rosary and Office of the Dead, August 4, 7:30 PM and Funeral Mass,
August 5, 12:05 PM, both at Most Holy Rosary Church.
The arrangements for the Bay Area services are the Vigil, August 12, 7:30
PM and Funeral Mass, August 13, 10:00 AM, both at Mary Magdalen Church,
Berkeley, with the burial at St. Dominic Cemetery, Benicia following the
Mass.
Date of Birth |
Date of Profession |
Date of Ordination |
Date of Death |
| April 17, 1921 |
September 9, 1042 |
June 14, 1947 |
August 3, 2004 |
Archive
Record: ________ |
