5 generations of women were married at same Lockport church

Lockport native Abigail Rodewald Brown said she and William Brown were not planning to hold their Dec. 2 wedding inside a church.

But during the wedding plans, Abigail Rodewald Brown’s grandmother casually mentioned Abigail Rodewald Brown would be the fifth generation of women in their family to get married at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Lockport.

“I thought, ‘Well, that is pretty cool. I can’t mess with tradition by any means,” Abigail Rodewald Brown said. “So we decided to go with it.”

Rachael Favero of Lockport, Abigail Rodewald Brown’s grandmother, said the first woman in the family to be married at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church was her own grandmother, Mary Dangle, who was 14 when she and her brother moved from Austria to join her mother and stepfather in Lockport.

“Actually, they arrived on the Fourth of July,” Favero said. “My mother said when my grandmother saw the picnic and fireworks, she said, ‘Is every day like this in the United States?’ ”

Dangle also was 14 when she started working as a housekeeper for a Lockport doctor, Favero said. She was 19 when she married Christiano Rodeghiero at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Lockport on April 28, 1896, Favero said. Rodeghiero had left Italy to avoid the draft, Favero said.

“He came to avoid the draft in Italy, and someone came to get him and bring him back to Italy,” Favero said. “And he managed to escape one more time, and nobody came to get him. I guess it wasn’t worth it to get him.”

Rodeghiero worked at the Illinois and Michigan Canal, “like many men did at that time,” Favero said. Dangle’s brother also worked at the canal.

“She would bring his lunch to him on the canal. That’s apparently where my grandparents met,” Favero said.

Favero’s mother was Rose Rodeghiero. She was the fourth child of Dangle and Christiano Rodeghiero but the first daughter in a family of 10 children, Favero said. She’s certain Rose Rodeghiero, being the oldest girl, helped with the cooking and housework.

“She used to tell me she ironed her brothers’ white shirts,” Favero said. “When they’d go to school in those days, the boys wore white shirts. It was just the way they lived. It was all about hard work and family.”

Rose Rodeghiero met her husband, Ralph Grant, at the former dance hall at Dellwood Park in Lockport.

“According to her, they dated for a while, and they broke up for about three years. And then they got back together,” Favero said. “The reason they broke up was because my father was not Catholic. In those days, that was a big thing.”

So Grant decided to convert to Catholicism, Favero said. When Grant told his mother, she advised him to not just convert but to be the best Catholic he could, Favero said.

Favero said Grant took that advice.

“He was a very faithful man,” Favero said.

Rose Rodeghiero was 25 when she married Grant on June 11, 1929, in a “traditional, planned-out wedding,” Favero said.

“She had a bigger wedding and wore a traditional white dress,” Favero said. “Dad had a fancy suit on.”

By contract, Rachael Favero married the late Richard Favero on Feb. 6, 1967, in a very simple wedding that was planned in a short period of time, Rachael Favero said. Instead of the white dress and veil, Rachael Favero said she wore a blue dress and coat outfit.

Richard Favero was attending school at Illinois State University, and Rachael Favero was attending the College of St. Francis (now University of St. Francis) in Joliet. But they also wanted to get married.

“We just decided we were going to do it, and so we did,” Rachael Favero said.

Rachael Favero said she didn’t have the same sense of history at the time, but she appreciates it now.

“I love the fact that I am still in Lockport where my grandmother came,” Rachael Favero said. “I love deep roots in a community.”

Gina Favero Rodewald of Lockport was 23 when she married Michael Rodewald on Aug. 18, 1990. During their engagement, Gina Favero Rodewald remembered the conversation turning to dresses, with someone saying, “Wouldn’t it be really neat if you wore a dress like Nana?’”

The 60-year-old dress was in pieces, but it was still in the family. So Gina Favero Rodewald took the dress to a woman in Lemont who pieced the dress together and made her own pattern to create the dress, Gina Favero Rodewald said.

“It was different compared to what most brides wore at the time,” Gina Favero Rodewald said. “But family is a big deal to us. And I thought it would make my Nana happy to see that again.”

Did it make her happy?

“Oh, yes!” Gina Favero Rodewald said. “I think she was thrilled. I not only had my dress, [but] my veil was fashioned after the veil she also wore.”

Gina Favero Rodewald also wore the rhinestone shoe clips Rose Rodeghiero Grant had worn when she married Ralph Grant in 1929. But like her mother, Rachael Favero, Gina Favero Rodewald wasn’t thinking in terms of family history at the time, even though she knew her mother and grandmother were married in the same church.

“I just never made the connection of, ‘Oh, gosh! I’m the fourth generation,” Gina Favero Rodewald said. “It’s really been since Abby got engaged that my mom just casually said one day, ‘She’ll be the fifth generation of our family to get married in that church.’ That put everything into place.”

Gina Favero Rodewald said Abigail Rodewald Brown and William Brown hadn’t envisioned a wedding at any church.

“But once we started talking about it, she realized that was something that was special, not typical, and that was something she should do, if not for herself then for her family,” Gina Favero Rodewald said.

Abigail Rodewald Brown and William Brown currently live in Rolling Meadows, but Abigail Rodewald Brown’s roots are in Lockport. She belonged to St. Joseph Catholic Church and attended St. Joseph Catholic School.

“St. Joe’s has been a part of my life from the beginning,” Abigail Rodewald Brown said.

Plus, William Brown’s family is Catholic, so they were thrilled with the couple’s change of plans, too, Abigail Rodewald Brown said.

“Everything just fell into place,” Abigail Rodewald Brown said.

Abigail Rodewald Brown said she wore her mother’s veil and earrings from her 1990 wedding, and her great-grandmother’s shoe clips from 1929, which Abigail Rodewald Brown’s mother also had worn at her wedding.

“It was just really special to know four other women before me got married in the same place,” Abigail Rodewald Brown said. “My mom even had all the altar photos at the reception. And it was just cool to know our altar photo is the same as the four that came before us.”