Generations of faith and family life nurtured bishop’s vocation
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Bishop John R. Gaydos’s ancestors were from Oružine and Odovině, both in Hungaria, in what is now part of Slovakia.
Sacrament records for St. John Nepomuk Oratory in St. Louis include the marriage of George Gaidos and Mary Filip, blessed by Father Petrus Houšt on July 26, 1886, and witnessed by John Surgent and Matthias Speck, who were also “workingmen.”
George, 31, was a widowed “workingman” and a son of Matthias Gaidos, a workingman from Oružine.
Mary, 22, was a handmaid in St. Louis and a daughter of Martinus Filip, a workingman from Odovině.
One of their descendants, George J. Gaydos, married Carrie Lee Pearson in Fredericktown, Missouri.
He was an electrician, she was a homemaker.
They had four children, John, Mark, Gary and Stephen.
The oldest was given the name of his uncle, John J. Gaydos, a U.S. Marine who died in November 1942 while serving in World War II, and another uncle, Redemptorist Father Raymond Gaydos, who was ordained to the Priesthood two months before young John Raymond was born.
The family Bible notes that Father Ed. L. O’Toole, pastor of St. Agnes Parish in St. Louis, baptized him on Sept. 5, 1943.
In dying and rising with Christ in Baptism, Bishop Gaydos received his calling to the Priesthood and eventually to become a shepherd of the Church.
