St. Francis breaks ground on library, science center

Most people don't consider a trip to see cadavers very enjoyable.

But for Mary Feltes, bringing her anatomy class to examine the human body was one of the most exciting days of each school year.

"She would get the whole class excited about seeing a cadaver," Feltes' daughter, Becky Fischesser, said Tuesday. "They would be totally into it and she made it cool somehow to go see dead people. She just had a knack at making everything interesting."

Last year Feltes, who worked in the science department at St. Francis High School in Wheaton for 24 years, died unexpectedly from heart failure at age 64.

But her legacy of fun and passionate teaching will live on at the school with the new Mary J. Feltes Science Suite, an addition she once called her dream.

"We're very proud and we're very humbled that it's being named after her," Fischesser said. "This was her vision."

A groundbreaking ceremony at the school on Tuesday marked the beginning of 18 months of construction to build a new facility that will consist of the science suite and the new Robinson Family Learning Resource Center.

Hundreds of donors, parents, students and community members attended the ceremony, which included a blessing from Bishop J. Peter Sartain of the ground and those involved in the new building's construction.

"Everybody is really thrilled," said Tom Bednar, president of St. Francis. "It's promoting a new kind of curriculum in science and it's creating greater opportunities for research in the learning resource center. It'll be a bright, new learning environment."

The science suite will feature six 28-seat laboratory classrooms, a greenhouse, a walkout green-roof and views of Belleau Woods Forest Preserve.

Feltes was one of many people who helped in the design of the suite that will now be named in her honor.

"I know she dabbled in all the different plans from the very beginning," Fischesser said. "She would sit down with the architects and help them plan and make things more realistic that made sense on paper, but not really to science teachers standing in the lab."

The learning resource center, meanwhile, will hold about 10,000 books and include a 28-seat study hall and six-seat study carrels.

Altogether the facility will cover about 200,000 square feet, doubling the existing space for both the science department and the school's library.

"We needed first-class facilities to match the faculty and students that we have," said Michael Abernathy, chairman of the completion stage of the school's capital campaign. "We also wanted facilities that would be flexible as technology changes."

The school will spend about $7 million for the site work, the facility and remodeling on the old science rooms and library.

Organizers conducted two fundraising campaigns over 10 years to raise the money. The first generated $5 million and the second, called "Completing the Dream," is closing in on raising the extra $2 million.

"We started the campaign at probably the worst time you could ever start a campaign, right in the teeth of a great recession," Abernathy said. "Two summers ago the question was asked, 'In this economy can we pull this off?' It's a remarkable thing in a sense that a lot of people stepped up and pulled it off."

Although Abernathy's three children who attended St. Francis are now grown, he finds himself motivated to stay around and help the school be successful.

"I can't get away from the school in the sense that there is a feel and a mission that is hard to ignore," he said. "In my view institutions like this are increasingly hard to find, They are institutions that maybe unlike 20 years ago you just can't take for granted. Even if your kids aren't there anymore you have to support them and really go out of your way to make them work."

Fischesser said her mother also found St. Francis to be a special place, and the people she worked with there motivated her to push hard for the construction of updated science space.

"She always said it was her second family," Fischesser said. "I honestly think, especially with the new wing, that she would have stayed here until she was 90. It was definitely her dream to stay here and to be able to give the students an even higher value of education."