John and Mary Judge: Catholic philanthropists

Courtesy photo/Diocese of Salt Lake City Archives

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Mary Judge was an early contributor to the Catholic Church in Utah, as was her husband prior to his death in 1892.

Each year as we think about renewing – and perhaps increasing – our Diocesan Development Drive pledges, we should be reminded that Utah Catholic history is full of inspiring stories of dedicated and generous people who have selflessly shared their resources to help build the church. Among those largely unsung heroes are John and Mary Judge.

When John Judge married Mary Harney in New York in 1867, he had few financial prospects. A penniless Irish immigrant fleeing the Potato Famine, he had come to this country, like many fellow immigrants, in pursuit of the American Dream of prosperity – perhaps even riches. For many, the dream failed to come true, and even though their lives might have been an improvement over what they had left in the Old Country, they nevertheless found themselves trapped at the bottom of the economic infrastructure, building railroads or laboring in factories. John Judge was more fortunate.

Arriving in Utah, he migrated to Park City, where he met fellow Irishman Thomas Kearns and became a partner with him and David Keith in their Silver King mine. It turned out to be the richest vein of ore in the state.

Despite their immense wealth, neither Kearns nor Judge ever lost the common touch. Not content to smoke cigars and sip cognac at the Alta Club, Judge continued to work alongside his miners. He paid a price for that, though, in contracting miners’ consumption from the dusty air below ground, and he died in 1892 at age 48.

Mary Judge proved to be a most capable custodian of the wealth her husband had created. She even increased that fortune significantly by expanding into mining ventures in Nevada, as well as in real estate and other businesses, including construction of the Judge Building in downtown Salt Lake City. And she did not neglect to share that wealth with the Catholic Church to which she and her husband were both devoted.

When Bishop Scanlan began construction of the Cathedral of the Madeleine at the turn of the twentieth century, Mary Judge was not only a generous subscriber to the construction costs, but she also donated the two largest windows at each end of the transept at the cost of $2,500 apiece.

Other ventures were not so fortunate. Her husband’s early death had heightened her awareness of the dangers of mining, and prompted her to finance the Judge Miners Home and Hospital on Eleventh East. The hospital proved to be a casualty of the happy discovery that sufficient numbers of ailing or retired miners did not exist to sustain its existence. After her death, the failed hospital was remodeled to become Judge Memorial Catholic High School.

Nor did the Judge residence on South Temple at J Street, one of the most lavish mansions in the city, long survive her death in 1909, for none of the family members wanted to live in it and preferred its demolition over its likely transformation into an ignoble boarding house.

The lives of John and Mary Judge might illustrate, among other things, that wealth itself is inherently neither good nor bad, but however it is spent, it should entail an obligation of stewardship. As we contemplate our own stewardship, may their lives inspire us to share our more modest resources with equal generosity.