After a night of reflection and prayer in July 1973, the Rev. James Close, a young suburban parish priest, turned down Cardinal John Cody’s offer to become head of the Mission of Our Lady of Mercy, a venerable West Side orphanage for troubled boys that had fallen on hard times.
“I prayed and reflected on this last night too,” replied the gruff Cody, who thought the tall, husky priest was just what was needed to keep the lid on the home’s delinquent boys. “And you are going to the Mission of Our Lady of Mercy. Tomorrow.”
From that unpromising beginning, the Rev. Close recast a shabby old building along an industrial strip at 1140 W. Jackson Blvd. into a legendary national child care showcase, now known as Mercy Home for Boys and Girls.
“Rev. Close’s legacy is profound,” said his successor at Mercy Home, the Rev. Scott Donahue. “His imprint on this community and on the lives of thousands of young people who have passed through our doors will continue to be felt for generations to come.”
The Rev. Close, 75, died of cancer Wednesday, Aug. 31, in St. Benedict Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Niles, Mercy Home officials said.
In 1973 when the Rev. Close took over the home, which was established in 1887, it was broke and bereft of anything to help the 89 hard-luck boys living there beyond three meals a day and a place to sleep.
Without any formal training, the Rev. Close, a big man with jovial blue eyes, transformed it into an institution that today is home to 134 boys and girls.
Under a therapeutic regime crafted by his professional staff, Mercy children let their own ambitions and abilities dictate their futures. Some have gone on to Harvard, Yale, Stanford and other distinguished schools.
“I came to Rev. Close’s door with just the clothes on my back, and all I had to offer him was a lot of emotional baggage,” said Chicago police Sgt. John O’Donnell, recalling how he was rescued in 1980 by the Rev. Close, the home and its programs. “He took me in and saved me.”
Like 9,000 other boys and girls who passed through the Mercy Home in the 33 years that the Rev. Close ran it, O’Donnell got a clean, homey room in a safe environment, good food and a lot of rules. No gangs, no drugs, no booze, no fighting. School, homework, chores and therapy sessions were all required.
The Rev. Close grew up one of six kids in a tightknit family of Irish immigrants on Chicago’s North Side.
“Jim wasn’t overly religious when we were kids,” said his older brother, retired Cook County Judge Michael Close. “He was a big, strong, athletic kid, but he believed deeply in the church and he believed in doing the right thing. He always wanted to be a priest.”
In 1963, the Rev. Close was ordained out of St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein and soon was assigned as parish priest of St. John Brebeuf Catholic Church in Niles, a job he always said he loved dearly.
Once at Mercy, the new director spent a couple of months simply watching how the home operated and studying the kids it was trying to help.
Then he made two surprising decisions that many now credit for Mercy’s great success under his leadership. First he removed all boys there under state contracts — often boys with problems beyond the home’s ability to help — and disposed of all government funding.
Then he went back to school, not to get a degree in child psychology or child care training, but to get a master’s in business administration from Notre Dame. He wanted to learn more about fundraising.
“He was a visionary,” said Mary Pat Hay, who in the 1990s was the first female chair of the home’s board of directors. “He wasn’t about just providing kids three square meals and a cot. He was looking to improve lives and providing counseling to kids suffering unbelievable emotional wounds.
“He never wanted to worry about government cutbacks or uncertainties, so he wanted his own source of income for the home.”
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While hiring the best professional child care staff he could muster, the Rev. Close put together a powerful direct mail marketing and advertising model that means it is 99.6 percent privately financed, an operational budget last year amounting to $28.8 million.
Under his direction, Mercy opened a second campus so that it could take in girls needing help, converting a mansion on the Far South Side to give them the same care and therapy as the boys.
Worrying that once kids left the home at 18 that they might still meet stumbling blocks that could send them reeling again, the Rev. Close insisted on establishing an aftercare program that keeps them connected to the home. For many, like John O’Donnell, it is the only real home they ever knew, and they gravitate to it for holidays and big moments in their lives.
“Rev. Close did my marriage ceremony, baptized my (four) kids and was there for any big event in my life,” O’Donnell said. “He always told my kids that he was their grandfather.”
The Rev. Close retired in 2006 after being diagnosed with cancer but was a frequent visitor to Mercy Home.
Last Sunday he was in a coma, unable to talk, when O’Donnell and his wife went to visit him one last time.
“We were told he probably could hear and understand us,” O’Donnell said. “So we talked for awhile, and then my wife left to give me some alone time with him. It was kind of personal stuff. I hope he heard what I had to say, I hope that he got it.”
The Rev. Close also is survived by two other brothers, William and Leo, and a sister, Sister Letitia.
Visitation will be held from 3 to 9 p.m. Tuesday in Holy Family Catholic Church, 1080 W. Roosevelt Road. Mass will be celebrated in the church at 10 a.m. Wednesday.