Page 14 - Priorities #27 2004-July

With no money but a lot of youthful energy to support an adventure, Father Egon headed to the southern tip of his new state and followed the mission trail of Portola and Father Serra, stopping at each point along the way.
Continued from page 13
El Camino Real Bells were first erected and
paid for by the Camino Real Association in the early 1900s. The first bells were designed and produced by Mrs. A.S.C. Forbes, known as America’s first woman bell-maker. Mrs. Forbes was an active member of many California civic organizations. In 1902, she was named state chairman of the California History and Landmarks Department of the Federation of Women’s Clubs, and in 1914 she founded the California Bell Company. The dates “1769 & 1906” are printed together on the El Camino Real Bell. The first date refers to the founding of the first California mission, in San Diego, and the 1906 date refers to the placement of the first El Camino Real Bell in Los Angeles.
A parent whom Father Egon remembers as George Pottorff, a public relations professional, spearheaded the effort to get an El Camino Real Bell to mark Portola’s likely travels through what is now the Woodside Priory grounds. The bell, in front
of our administration building, was installed in the 1980s.
Father Egon Javor chats with guests outside the chapel following this year’s eighth grade graduation ceremony.
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Editor’s note:
When Father Egon Javor arrived in the San Francisco
Bay Area in 1955, California was for him a territory as unexplored as it was for Gaspar de Portola two centuries earlier. A Hungarian refugee from post-World War II communist repression, Father Egon initially taught theology to young Benedictines at St. Mary’s Monastery in Morristown New Jersey. With six confreres from the same thousand-year-old archabbey of Pannonhalma, Hungary, he made plans to start their own monastery and school.
California was growing in population, schools and educators were needed, and there were no Benedictines yet in the state. Father Egon found a welcoming community in San Francisco and along the Peninsula. In the lovely Portola Valley, he found land the monks could afford and a vista that would remind his fellow refugee monks at least a little bit of their Hungarian home.
Once his future was established here, he had several months remaining before school would open. With
no money but a lot of youthful energy to support an adventure, he headed to the southern tip of his new state and followed the mission trail of Portola and Father Serra, stopping at each point along the way. He said he wanted to understand for himself the roots of this young state so that he could share that knowledge with the students who would populate his school.
Father Egon and parent Abbe Patterson have co- authored several articles for Priory Parent newsletter over the past two years, highlighting the history of the campus one landmark at a time. This article was printed in the May newsletter.