The Rt. Rev. Monsignor Marius Etienne Chataignon

The plaque says Father Chat helped establish the Odin High School for Boys, which became Kirwin High School. The Rosenberg Library Museum, which does not mention Odin, dates Kirwin to 1927, when the diocese converted the former Moody residence on Tremont Street and named the school for Msgr. James Kirwin, who had died the year before. Dominican and Ursuline nuns taught there until the Christian Brothers returned in 1931. The brothers had first come in 1861 and left after the 1867 yellow fever. In 1968 Kirwin merged with the island's two girls' academies as O'Connell.

What the plaque says

The Rt. Rev. Monsignor Marius Etienne Chataignon (September 17, 1886 - November 18, 1957) A native of France, Marius Etienne Chataignon served in the French army before coming to the United States in 1907. He came to Texas in 1910 to attend St. Mary's Seminary in La Porte. After his ordination, he was appointed assistant pastor at St. Mary's Cathedral in Galveston in 1911. Chataignon served as a chaplain in the U. S. Army in France during World War I. Appointed chaplain in the U. S. Army Officers Reserve Corps in 1923, he also served with the Texas National Guard, 36th Division. In 1924 he became pastor of Galveston's Sacred Heart Church. In 1942 "Father Chat, Galveston's soldier priest," as he was fondly known, was promoted to the rank of colonel and served as chief chaplain of the II Corps, 5th Army in North Africa and Italy during World War II. Pope Pius XII appointed Father Chataignon to the rank of domestic Prelate in 1943. Monsignor Chataignon returned to Sacred Heart Church in 1945 a highly decorated veteran and retired from the army in 1953. During his years as pastor at Sacred Heart, "Father Chat" was instrumental in the establishment of the Odin High School for Boys which became Kirwin High School, and he organized Boy Scout troops. He is buried in Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Dickinson. (1991) Incise on base: Msgr. Chataignon Knights of Columbus #9978

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• 1892 Bishop's Palace — steps away
  Nicholas Clayton's stone house on Broadway for the railroad lawyer Walter Gresham, later home to Galveston's Catholic bishops and one of the most admired Victorian houses in the country.
• 1859 Ashton Villa — 0.7 mi
  A brick Italianate house on Broadway, built with enslaved labor in 1859, whose lawn has held Galveston's Juneteenth commemoration of General Orders, No. 3 every year since 1979.
• The Strand — 0.8 mi
  Five blocks of iron-front brick buildings near the harbor that were once called the Wall Street of the Southwest, emptied after 1900 and brought back by preservationists from the 1960s.
• Texas Seaport Museum and the Elissa — 0.8 mi
  An iron barque launched in Aberdeen in 1877 that called at Galveston twice, ended up smuggling in the Adriatic, and was bought back from a Greek scrapyard to sail again from Pier 22.

More markers nearby

• St. Paul United Methodist Church — steps away
• George Washington Chapter - DAR — steps away
• Former Site of Heidenheimer's Castle — steps away
• Homesite of Dr. William Keiller — 0.3 mi