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A Fitting Tribute
Of the $2 million Figge gift making the chapel renovation possible, Covino adds, "This gift and this project are signs of the religious vitality of Holy Cross. You don't do this in an institution that is moving away from its religious roots."
The gift of a renovated chapel could be no more appropriate nor appreciated, says Mary, McCooey's wife of 37 years. "Daily Mass was Bob's whole life," she explains. "It's a most fitting tribute to him and unbelievably generous."
Her husband, who always advised people wanting to get married that "you work at marriage every day in every way" and practiced what he preached, had a "capacity for mixing humor with his own spirituality," she adds. "He was a very funny man and was just very comfortable in his religion."
Holy Cross had a lasting impact on McCooey's life that is still being felt, she says. The family is building a new home and over the dining room will be inscribed the words, "When a guest comes, Christ comes," the same words gracing Kimball Hall at Holy Cross.
"That was something Bob always felt," she says. "So it's going into our new home."
What made Holy Cross such an integral part of Bob McCooey Sr.'s life made it the same for his children.
"Dad said college should be eight years - four years of study, four years of forming friendships and being with people, interacting with them," says Bob Jr. "He felt it very important that not everyone's life was found in a book - it was found in people, at Mass or the library, out with your friends. He was very big on the community of Holy Cross and the way it didn't have the overriding attitude of grandeur you get at some larger schools."
According to Mark McCooey, his dad taught him "Fifty percent of what you learn in class, 50 percent of what you learn outside of class, makes you a well-rounded person. It's not about one or the other, but both."
Bob McCooey Sr.'s funeral last November had an impressive contingency of Holy Cross alumni in the assembly; and Rev. John E. Brooks, S.J., president emeritus, Rev. Francis Miller, S.J., vice president emeritus, and former president, Rev. Gerard Reedy, S.J., served on the altar. Many people were astounded by the sheer volume of McCooey's charitable works. He served in a variety of volunteer capacities for churches, schools and hospitals - a course of life that was just the way he lived it, his sons say.
"He didn't give his name to charity just to give his name," Bob Jr. says. "He was involved in each and every one; he was committed to them and was going to be actively involved in fund raising and management, or whatever it took to make it the best hospital, the best school, the best charity of any kind."
And he did it, he says, "without fanfare or monument - he wasn't looking for any of that. His glory would be with God at the end of his life. He felt there was no need for anything else along the way."
The monument that will exist now, in the form of McCooey Chapel, is a fitting one, John Figge says, of a man who was a great listener and a great friend for more than 40 years.
"Bob was a special person in my life," Figge says simply. "He was an exemplary Catholic, and he became not only my friend, but my role model."