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from Past and Present of Mahaska County, Iowa by Manoah Hedge The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co. 1906
Rev. Francis Peter McManus, priest of St. Mary's Catholic church, at Oskaloosa, was born in Scott county, Iowa, in 1868, a son of James and Mary Ann (Gallagher) McManus. The father, now living in Davenport, Iowa, at the age of sixty-two years, followed merchandising until 1890, when he was made a member of the police force of Davenport, to which city he had removed in 1877. He is a member of the Catholic church and of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, and in his political allegiance is a democrat. His wife, who was born in Ohio, died in 1876, at the age of thirty-one years, also in the faith of the Catholic church. In the family were a daughter and two sons, but the former, Annie, is now deceased. John was lost in Havana harbor on the battleship Maine, on February 15, 1898. The body was recovered and was interred at Havana, but after a year the remains were transferred to the Arlington National cemetery, at Washington, D. C. He was a fireman on the Maine and was twenty- eight years of age at the time he lost his life. Rev. McManus, the only surviving member of the father's family, attended the common schools in his early boyhood and also the parochial schools in Davenport and other places, including Beargrove and Adair. He entered Ambrose College in 1885, pursuing therein classical course, from which he was graduated in 1889. He next entered St. Francis Seminary, at Wilwaukee, Wisconsin, from which he was graduated, in 1893, and he was ordained to the priesthood in June of the same year at Davenport by Bishop Cosgrove. He was then assigned as a curate at St. Ambrose church at Des Moines, where he remained for about a year, after which he spent two and a half years at Brooklyn, Iowa. He then went to Colorado, where he remained for fifteen months for the benefit of his health, at the end of which time he was appointed priest of St. Timothy's church at Cumberland, Iowa, where he remained for six years and four months. In November, 1904, he came to Oskaloosa and took charge of St. Mary's church. This has a membership of about one hundred and fifteen families and the church is in a prosperous condition, its various societies being in good working order, while the membership is in hearty sympathy with its principles, giving to him earnest co-operation in his work for the material and spiritual needs of his parishioners. His political support is given to the democracy.
Past and Present of Mahaska County, Iowa
Mahaska County, Iowa Genealogy