1853 – 1914 (March 3)
Francis Augustine McCranor, son of Smith McCranor and Catharine Rooney, was born on April 18, 1853, in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and was baptized in Saint Mary’s Church there. On January 26, 1877, he entered the novitiate at Villanova, Pennsylvania, professed first vows on March 8, 1878, and final vows on March 10, 1881. Francis was ordained to the priesthood on June 11, 1881, by Bishop Jeremiah F. Shanahan, D.D. of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in the Church of St. Vincent de Paul, Germantown, Pa.
In July, 1881, he received his first assignment to Saint Mary’s Parish, Lawrence, as administrator of the Immaculate Conception Church. Three months later he began serving in Augustinian parishes in New York State, first as assistant at Saint John the Baptist Parish, Schaghticoke, then, in 1883, at Saint Patrick Parish, Cambridge. In 1886 he was assigned to Saint Paul Parish, Mechanicville. In May of that year he celebrated the funeral mass for his younger brother, Father Arthur P. McCranor, O.S.A., who died at 30 years of age.
Father Francis’ next assignment was to Saint James Parish, Carthage, New York. For the year 1891, Father McCranor served under the first bishop of the Brooklyn Diocese, John Loughlin, D.D. In 1892, he returned to Lawrence, Massachusetts, to assist his mother. A year later he was assigned to Saint Mary’s Parish there and became administrator of Saint Monica Church, Methuen, a mission of Saint Mary. In 1902, Father McCranor returned to the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Hoosick Falls, New York, where, on March 3, 1914, he died at sixty-one years of age. The funeral mass was celebrated at Saint Mary’s Church in Lawrence, Mass., followed by burial in Saint Mary’s cemetery.
