Jack and Mary Dempsey Scholarship
This scholarship has been generously established by the Dempsey Family in memory of Jack and Mary Dempsey. The Dempsey Family’s wish is to provide an opportunity to future deserving student(s) in financial need as an incoming
Santa Clara High School Freshman.
DONOR STATEMENT
Biography of Jack and Mary Dempsey
This is a short biography of our parents, Jack and Mary Dempsey, and here are a few stories about our Mom and Dad who had very different upbringings especially where religion and education were concerned, although in the end it all worked out. We are still very much connected to Santa Clara High School and we are four families supporting this scholarship program: Kevin Dempsey ‘67 and his wife Betty ‘68, David Dempsey ‘68 and his wife Jennifer, Tom Dempsey ‘71, and Denis Dempsey ‘78 and his wife Susan.
A good beginning of our dad’s family story would be right before the Civil War when the potato famine struck Ireland and great grandparents John Dempsey and Mary Murphy emigrated to America and landed in New York City approximately 1863. The first written information we have describes our great-grandfather as a “laborer.” About 25 years later our grandfather, James Frances Dempsey was born and became a NYPD policeman and married our grandmother and had one child, our father, John Patrick Dempsey in 1919. The local Catholic church and elementary school, St. Ephrem, was located across the street from their home in the borough of Brooklyn, in a neighborhood called Bay Ridge. It is still there today.
Mom’s family hailed from St. Louis, Missouri and were of Dutch and German heritage unlike Jack’s Irish Catholic relatives. Our mother’s neighborhood in St. Louis reflected that lineage and her high school was Grover Cleveland H.S., home of the Dutchmen.
Neither of our parents attended college and when World War II broke out our dad enlisted. I recall our Mother telling us that our grandmother gave her a one-way ticket to New York from St. Louis and she went to work for a dentist Dr. Sterling. This is where fate or divine intervention struck——you can take your pick. Later somehow Jack and Mary both ended up in Lawton, Oklahoma at Fort Sill United States Army base, at this point strangers. The story goes that Jack was riding on the back of a friend’s motorcycle on the Army post and they hit some ice and the bike went down and he broke his arm and was put in the infirmary. At the hospital he met a young candy striper volunteer, our Mother-To-Be, Mary Margaret Wilson. It must have been love at first sight because a few years later they were married at St. Ambrose Catholic Church in West Hollywood, with all our mother’s Protestant relatives and a few Catholics in attendance.
Various military assignments over the years brought Kevin’s birth at Camp Lee Virginia, David’s birth at St. Alban’s Naval Hospital in Queens, New York, Tom’s birth in Osaka Japan and finally Denis’ birth in Hollywood, California. We would visit our grandparents in Brooklyn in the 1950’s when we lived in New Jersey and we attended Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church and School.
Jack retired from the Army in 1960 and we moved to West Hollywood, California where our Mom’s family lived.
All of the rituals that are common in Catholic schools and Churches (i.e., altar boys, choir, midnight mass, stations of the cross) were enthusiastically supported by both my parents and each of us. Our Dad was an usher at the 12:00 mass every Sunday taking up the collection. Our mother was not even a Catholic but very religious. Living in West Hollywood, our grandmother was a major supporter of Hollywood Church of Religious Science as was our Mom. We attended St. Ambrose school and Church on Fairfax Avenue between Santa Monica Blvd. and Sunset Blvd. We then moved to Camarillo where our Protestant mother became President of the PTA at St. Mary Magdalen Catholic School. We were eventually all enrolled at Santa Clara High School, commuting daily from Camarillo.
All through the 60’s and 70’s we played four sports at Santa Clara, stayed out of trouble, and tried to accumulate enough units to graduate and proceed to college, graduating from Humboldt State, University of Wyoming, Loyola Los Angeles, Cal State Fullerton, and Fresno State. Not sure what the high school journey would have been like without Father O’Sullivan, Coach Cvijanovich, the Sisters and Brothers who taught us, and the sacrifices and support of our parents. We received a great education, met some long lasting friends, and SCHS prepared us for the challenges of life.
Just before our Mother passed away in the late 1980’s Monsignor Hughes, a good Irishman at St. Mary Magdalen in Camarillo, took our Mother aside and said, “Mary this has gone on long enough. I am going to take you over to the Church and baptize you as a Catholic.” And he did.
We wish you luck, study hard, stay out of trouble, and you are Santa Clara’s future success.
-The Dempsey Family
Santa Clara High School Freshman.
DONOR STATEMENT
Biography of Jack and Mary Dempsey
This is a short biography of our parents, Jack and Mary Dempsey, and here are a few stories about our Mom and Dad who had very different upbringings especially where religion and education were concerned, although in the end it all worked out. We are still very much connected to Santa Clara High School and we are four families supporting this scholarship program: Kevin Dempsey ‘67 and his wife Betty ‘68, David Dempsey ‘68 and his wife Jennifer, Tom Dempsey ‘71, and Denis Dempsey ‘78 and his wife Susan.
A good beginning of our dad’s family story would be right before the Civil War when the potato famine struck Ireland and great grandparents John Dempsey and Mary Murphy emigrated to America and landed in New York City approximately 1863. The first written information we have describes our great-grandfather as a “laborer.” About 25 years later our grandfather, James Frances Dempsey was born and became a NYPD policeman and married our grandmother and had one child, our father, John Patrick Dempsey in 1919. The local Catholic church and elementary school, St. Ephrem, was located across the street from their home in the borough of Brooklyn, in a neighborhood called Bay Ridge. It is still there today.
Mom’s family hailed from St. Louis, Missouri and were of Dutch and German heritage unlike Jack’s Irish Catholic relatives. Our mother’s neighborhood in St. Louis reflected that lineage and her high school was Grover Cleveland H.S., home of the Dutchmen.
Neither of our parents attended college and when World War II broke out our dad enlisted. I recall our Mother telling us that our grandmother gave her a one-way ticket to New York from St. Louis and she went to work for a dentist Dr. Sterling. This is where fate or divine intervention struck——you can take your pick. Later somehow Jack and Mary both ended up in Lawton, Oklahoma at Fort Sill United States Army base, at this point strangers. The story goes that Jack was riding on the back of a friend’s motorcycle on the Army post and they hit some ice and the bike went down and he broke his arm and was put in the infirmary. At the hospital he met a young candy striper volunteer, our Mother-To-Be, Mary Margaret Wilson. It must have been love at first sight because a few years later they were married at St. Ambrose Catholic Church in West Hollywood, with all our mother’s Protestant relatives and a few Catholics in attendance.
Various military assignments over the years brought Kevin’s birth at Camp Lee Virginia, David’s birth at St. Alban’s Naval Hospital in Queens, New York, Tom’s birth in Osaka Japan and finally Denis’ birth in Hollywood, California. We would visit our grandparents in Brooklyn in the 1950’s when we lived in New Jersey and we attended Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church and School.
Jack retired from the Army in 1960 and we moved to West Hollywood, California where our Mom’s family lived.
All of the rituals that are common in Catholic schools and Churches (i.e., altar boys, choir, midnight mass, stations of the cross) were enthusiastically supported by both my parents and each of us. Our Dad was an usher at the 12:00 mass every Sunday taking up the collection. Our mother was not even a Catholic but very religious. Living in West Hollywood, our grandmother was a major supporter of Hollywood Church of Religious Science as was our Mom. We attended St. Ambrose school and Church on Fairfax Avenue between Santa Monica Blvd. and Sunset Blvd. We then moved to Camarillo where our Protestant mother became President of the PTA at St. Mary Magdalen Catholic School. We were eventually all enrolled at Santa Clara High School, commuting daily from Camarillo.
All through the 60’s and 70’s we played four sports at Santa Clara, stayed out of trouble, and tried to accumulate enough units to graduate and proceed to college, graduating from Humboldt State, University of Wyoming, Loyola Los Angeles, Cal State Fullerton, and Fresno State. Not sure what the high school journey would have been like without Father O’Sullivan, Coach Cvijanovich, the Sisters and Brothers who taught us, and the sacrifices and support of our parents. We received a great education, met some long lasting friends, and SCHS prepared us for the challenges of life.
Just before our Mother passed away in the late 1980’s Monsignor Hughes, a good Irishman at St. Mary Magdalen in Camarillo, took our Mother aside and said, “Mary this has gone on long enough. I am going to take you over to the Church and baptize you as a Catholic.” And he did.
We wish you luck, study hard, stay out of trouble, and you are Santa Clara’s future success.
-The Dempsey Family