I’m overjoyed at the news that the cause for sainthood of Tom Vander Woude is being investigated by the Arlington, Virginia, Diocese, with help from the Tom Vander Woude Guild
I was editor of the National Catholic Register in 2008 when Vander Woude died -- and his life has changed the way I have lived since then. And not just me.
“We’ve heard of priests in Spain and Colorado preaching about my dad’s death during their homilies on the feast of the Triumph of the Cross,” his son Dan told the Register at the time. “I’ve also heard from many friends that his story is inspiring other husbands and fathers for how they should be leading their daily lives.”
Tom Vander Woude died saving his son
What most people hear first about Vander Woude is his last act. One of his seven sons, who was 19 at the time, fell into a septic tank on his Northern Virginia farmland property on September 8. Vander Woude ran to get a neighbor, said, “You pull; I’ll push,” and plunged down next to his son. He hoisted him out, then drowned.
The inspiring story was circulated widely. The Washington Post reported that more than 2,000 people attended his funeral on September 15, 2008, including more than 70 priests and Arlington Bishop Paul Loverde.
His dying act was, “truly saintly” and “the crown of a whole life of self-giving,” said the bishop. “May we find in his life inspiration and strength.”
We did. The way he died taught me about the Father’s sacrifice, and my own.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the stories I heard about this man’s life.
Vander Woude was a Vietnam War veteran born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in 1942. After serving as a Navy pilot, he married Mary Ellen Earley in 1964, and worked as an airline pilot until he retired in 2002 to Nokesville, Virginia.
In the midst of the attention surrounding his death, Mary Heisler told the Washington Post how, when she moved to the area to help at Seton School in Manassas, Vander Woude took her and her family in — “He gave us half the home,” she said — then loaned the money for a down payment on a house of their own.
Peter Scheetz told the Post, “When my wife and I got married, we were trying to buy a townhouse. …. Tom Vander Woude ended up co-signing our loan for our first house.”
Another neighbor told the Post: “He’s the kind of guy who would give you the shirt off his back. … And if he didn’t have one, he’d buy one for you.”
His family life impressed me even more
A Washington Post sports story from 1987 about his son’s basketball talents shows what he was like as a young dad. “Back when all our kids were young and I was coaching a 10-and-under team. Danny was six and his two older brothers were also on the team,” Vander Woude told the Post.
Twenty years later, that son, Dan, told the Register his dad always coached them. “He didn’t know soccer, but there was a need, so he went to coaching clinics to learn that.”
Then, Dan said the words that I have lived by ever since. “When others asked about the secrets of success for raising Catholic families, he was always quick to point to the family Rosary,” said Dan. “He was definitely devoted to Our Lady.”
“He also did a Holy Hour between two and three in the morning and was a daily Communicant (he received the Eucharist daily). With the Rosary, he used to say a prayer to St. Joseph. Those were the things in front of us that we saw of our father. In this culture, which is selling a lot of stuff, I had a father on his knees who was showing me how to be a man of God.”
Ever since then, I have done those same things.
In 2009, I got a job at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, which offers 24-hour Eucharistic adoration. I signed up for the 2 to 3 hour, like him, and have it to this day.
I go to Mass daily, and never forgot the image of “a father on his knees” devoted to St. Joseph, so I have knelt through our daily family Rosary ever since. I also created a homemade “St. Joseph Prayer Book” to help my children start their own prayer life.
Tim Drake’s article in the Register added another moving detail that inspires my love for my wife. The Vander Woudes made arrangements to bury the body of an unborn child and Scheetz made a small pine coffin for the occasion.
“When Mr. Vander Woude saw the pine coffin, he commented, ‘Where can we get in line for ours?’” Scheetz later made the coffin for Vander Woude’s funeral, and his daughters-in-law added a beautiful touch: They used the wedding dress of his wife, Mary Ellen, as the coffin’s lining.
Love for family is the legacy of Tom Vander Woude.
For years after he died, when I was faced with important decisions, I asked myself, “What would Tom Vander Woude do?” and tried to do it. This taught me an important lesson. Holiness turns out to be as simple as “Do what you are supposed to do — no matter what.”
That’s what Tom Vander Woude did. He was only able to give his life heroically for his family because he had already given it them, unheroically but consistently, day after day. That is what I want to do.
Learn more about him at the Guild web site, and report miracles there as well.
