In 1918, E.P. Schwartz pushed his 4-year-old daughter, Jean, in a small carriage through the University of Notre Dame campus near South Bend, Indiana.
Two years earlier, polio had left the little girl’s left leg paralyzed and bent so that she was unable to stand on it. When she passed children playing, she must have felt sad knowing that she couldn’t join them.
Though many doctors had told Schwartz that Jean would remain crippled, he had brought her to Notre Dame from their home in Lansing, Michigan, to seek the prayer of Congregation of Holy Cross Brother Columba O’Neill, who, along with being a shoemaker, was known for healings that resulted from his intercession to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
The now-Servant of God, who himself had suffered from a congenital foot disability, simply patted her on the head and said, “The little girl will be alright,” Jean Schwartz Donohue recalled in the memoir she wrote for her family. The shoemaker also recommended she visit a chiropractor to stretch the leg to the length of her other one.
On the way home, Schwartz noticed that his daughter’s leg was no longer bent, said Barbara
