Family Ties
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Agnes and Frank Cassaretto |
IN THE LATE 1920s, Frank Cassaretto sat in chemistry class at Northwestern University.
The professor asked his students, “How many of you believe in God?” Some, including Cassaretto, raised their hands.
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| Frank Cassaretto |
Cassaretto graduated from Loyola University Chicago with a bachelor of science degree in 1930, and later that year began a teaching career at Loyola that would span four decades. His wife and companion, Agnes, became the first unofficial secretary of the Loyola chemistry department.
Students, colleagues, and family members remember the Cassarettos as deeply devoted to the Jesuit ideal of education, seeking God in all things, and living as people for others. Together they started a family that would become intricately involved with and dedicated to Loyola University Chicago.
A SIMPLE TWIST OF FATE
Professor Cassaretto helped to raise money for Madonna della Strada Chapel, now a landmark of the Lake Shore Campus. The chapel was built in 1938 despite the financial challenges of the Great Depression. Mrs. Cassaretto played her part in Madonna della Strada’s construction as well: she played bridge with other wives of faculty members, and at the end of each game, all winnings were contributed to the chapel fund.
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| Gemma Cassaretto |
“They got along, and I don’t believe my father ever commented on it,” says Mary Simon, the Cassarettos’ eldest daughter. “The professor probably never knew how he brought my father and Loyola together.”
THREE SISTERS
The Cassarettos had three daughters, Mary, Toni, and Gemma, who attended and even taught at Loyola and Mundelein. Mary Cassaretto, now Mary Simon (BA ’53), was admitted to Loyola in 1949, when she was 16 years old, and later joined her father on the faculty, teaching sociology. She met her husband, Raymond Simon (BA ’53, JD ’56), in the Sodality Room in the office of Joseph Hogan, S.J., on the third floor of Lewis Towers in 1950.
"I feel a bond to Loyola and Mundelein that will never break.” |
| –Toni [Cassaretto] Perille (MUND ’56) |
Toni Perille (MUND ’56), attended Mundelein College, where she was taught by Ann Ida Gannon, BVM, a friend with whom she remained in contact for many years.
“She was a wonderful teacher,” Perille remembered. “She would draw stick figures to help us understand difficult concepts. She had a great sense of humor.” After receiving her master’s degree in early child education from Mundelein and sending the youngest of her six children off to school, Perille worked as an educator, devoted her energies to numerous charities, and engaged in pastoral work. “I feel a bond to Loyola and Mundelein that will never break,” she said.
Sadly, Toni Perille passed away on May 6, 2007. She will be missed by the Loyola community and by all whose lives she touched.
"All of us were really fortunate and blessed for my father to have made that decision all those years ago to come to Loyola.” |
| –Mary [Cassaretto] Simon (BA ’53) |
She was also the first of many Cassarettos (including her two children) to attend the Rome Center, which her father encouraged and helped John Felice to start in the early 1960s while both were instructors at Loyola. When Agnes Cassaretto underwent major surgery in 1976, Felice was her first visitor. Before even Mrs. Cassaretto’s immediate family could get in to see her, Felice convinced the hospital staff to let him in by claiming to be her “Italian fiancé.”
‘OUR INVOLVEMENT HAS BEEN TOTAL’
Frank Cassaretto retired from Loyola in 1972. By all accounts, he was extremely dedicated to helping his students to succeed, and his wife is credited with enabling and encouraging him to excel as an educator. “He gave a quiz every day and corrected it himself,” says Mary Simon. “He wanted to see whether the lesson had gotten across, and if it hadn’t, he would re-present it. If it was possible for you to learn chemistry, he would teach it to you.”
Understanding that many students, particularly veterans, had to work their way through school, Cassaretto ran an unofficial student employment office. Former students would call him when they needed students to work part time in labs and stockrooms. “Our father’s parents died when he was young, so he always appreciated students who came from a less than ideal situation, or who needed a little extra help,” says Gemma Allen Nader.
Frank Cassaretto’s funeral mass was held in 1987 at Madonna della Strada, the chapel he had helped to build nearly a half-century earlier. He and Agnes Cassaretto, who passed away in 1996, are remembered as people of great faith, generosity, and commitment to Jesuit education. The Agnes and Frank Cassaretto Scholarship in Chemistry, supported by the generosity of the Cassaretto family and Brach Foundation, annually provides two $5,000 scholarships, as well as two Cassaretto Medals of $500, to outstanding Loyola chemistry students.
The heirs of Frank and Agnes Cassaretto continue to attend and give back to Loyola—the third generation has too many Loyola graduates and Rome Center alumni to list.
“Our involvement as a family has been total, with Loyola and with the Jesuits,” says Mary Simon. “I feel that all of us were really fortunate and blessed for my father to have made that decision all those years ago to come to Loyola. I can’t imagine it differently.”
Given the family’s continuing connections with and support of the University, it seems a blessing on both sides.
Gemma Cassaretto
Ray Simon and the Cassaretto women
Mary Simon, Toni Perille, and Gemma Allen Nader, then and now