1906 – 1969 (August 19)
John J. McMenamin was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on June 4, 1906, to John McMenamin and Katherine O’Farrell. He was baptized there in Our Lady Star of the Sea Parish, and from 1913 to 1919, attended Saint Nicholas of Tolentine Parochial School. In September 1919, he entered Villanova Preparatory School, Villanova, PA and graduated in June 1923.On the 21st of the month he was received into the novitiate, and made his profession of vows on June 22, 1924. He was solemnly professed in 1927, the same year in which he began his theological studies in Washington, DC. He was ordained in Washington at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on June 10, 1930, by Bishop John McNamara. He received a Master’s degree in English in 1931 and later a B.S. in Library Science.
Father McMenamin was assigned to Villanova Preparatory in Ojai, California in 1931. The following year he taught and was procurator at Augustinian Academy on Staten Island where he remained until 1941. From 1941 until 1951 he served as Bursar of Villanova College. In 1951 he was assigned to Saint Nicholas of Tolentine church in Atlantic City, where he served as assistant pastor and then prior and pastor until 1968. In 1968 he was assigned to Saint Thomas of Villanova parish.
Father McMenamin was 63 when he died suddenly of a heart attack on Tuesday, August 19, 1969, while vactioning in Wildwood, New Jersey. His Funeral Mass was celebrted at Saint Nicholas of Tolentine, New Jersem, on Friday, August 22. A second Mass was offered at Saint Mary’s Hall, Villanova, aftt which he was was buried in Saint Mary’s Hall Cemetery. Later, all the bodies of all the friars buried there, were re-located at Calvary Cemetery, West Conshohocken.
