Danny's Promise

As a follow-on to last Sunday's post, the following is taken from the website of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.A.), entitled Danny's Promise. This week, I'd like to continue exploring Danny Thomas' prayers to St. Jude and, ultimately, his pledge to this saint. Click here to read the original information.

"More than 70 years ago, Danny Thomas, then a struggling young entertainer with a baby on the way, visited a Detroit church and was so moved during the Mass, he placed his last $7 in the collection box. When he realized what he’d done, Danny Thomas prayed for a way to pay the looming hospital bills. The next day, he was offered a small part that would pay 10 times the amount he’d given to the church. Danny Thomas had experienced the power of prayer.

Two years later, Danny Thomas had achieved moderate acting success in Detroit, but he was struggling to take his career to the next level. Once again, he turned to the church. Praying to St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of hopeless causes, Danny Thomas asked the saint to “help me find my way in life, and I will build you a shrine.”

His career took a turn for the better, and soon he moved his family to Chicago to pursue career offers. A few years later, at another turning point in his life, Danny Thomas visited a church and remembered his pledge to St. Jude. Again he prayed to St. Jude and repeated his pledge to build a shrine to the saint if he would show him the way.

In the years that followed, Danny Thomas’ career flourished through films and television, and he became an internationally known entertainer. He remembered his pledge to build a shrine to St. Jude.

In the early 1950s, Danny Thomas began discussing with friends what concrete form his vow might take. Gradually, the idea of a children’s hospital, possibly in Memphis, Tenn., took shape. In 1955, Danny Thomas and a group of Memphis businessmen who had agreed to help support his dream seized on the idea of creating a unique research hospital devoted to curing catastrophic diseases in children. More than just a treatment facility, this would be a research center for the children of the world.

Danny Thomas started raising money for his vision of St. Jude in the early 1950s. By 1955, the local business leaders who had joined his cause began area fundraising efforts, supplementing Danny Thomas’ benefit shows that brought scores of major entertainment stars to Memphis. Often accompanied by his wife, Rose Marie, Danny Thomas crisscrossed the United States by car talking about his dream and raising funds at meetings and benefits. The pace was so hectic that Danny Thomas and his wife once visited 28 cities in 32 days. Although Danny Thomas and his friends raised the money to build the hospital, they now faced the daunting task of funding its annual operation.

To solve this problem, Danny Thomas turned to his fellow Americans of Arabic-speaking heritage. Believing deeply that these Americans should, as a group, thank the United States for the gifts of freedom given their parents, Danny Thomas also felt the support of St. Jude would be a noble way of honoring his immigrant forefathers who had come to America.

Danny Thomas’ request struck a responsive chord. In 1957, 100 representatives of the Arab-American community met in Chicago to form ALSAC® with a sole purpose of raising funds for the support of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Since that time, with national headquarters in Memphis and regional offices throughout the United States, ALSAC has assumed full responsibility for all the hospital’s fundraising efforts, raising hundreds of millions annually through benefits and solicitation drives among Americans of all ethnic, religious and racial backgrounds. Today, ALSAC is the nation’s second largest health-care charity and is supported by the efforts of more than 1 million volunteers nationwide.

Through striking improvements in the care of pediatric leukemias and numerous forms of solid tumors, St. Jude – which now has a daily operating cost of nearly $1.3 million – has brought about improved health care for children all over the world.

From a promise of “Help me find my way in life, and I will build you a shrine” to the fulfillment of his dream, Danny Thomas lived to see his little hospital become an international beacon of hope for the catastrophically ill children of the world. The founder of St. Jude and ALSAC died on February 6, 1991, just two days after joining patients, parents and employees to celebrate the hospital’s 29th anniversary. He was laid to rest in a family crypt at the Danny Thomas/ALSAC Pavilion on the grounds of the hospital. On July 12, 2000, his wife, Rose Marie, passed away and now lies with her beloved husband in the hospital’s Memorial Garden. Today, their children, Marlo, Terre and Tony, carry on their parents’ work and remain a driving force in fulfilling their father’s mission. Danny Thomas is gone, but his dream lives on."

Again, the following is taken from the hospital's website. Memorable Moments chronicles some of the important milestones and achievements throughout its history, from 1957 when the St. Jude story began, to present day; click here.

Article: LSU tackle Ciron Black playing for more than just a title in 2009

A story from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Danny Thomas' legacy and offering of thanks to St. Jude Thaddeus (see source link here), authored by Andy Staples of Inside College Football at SI.com.

Tailback Charles Scott didn't decide whether to return for his senior season at LSU until he heard from the behemoth who paves his path to the end zone. "Of course, I was looking at if Ciron was leaving," Scott said in January. "If I'd have my big boy back."

Scott's big boy, LSU left tackle Ciron Black, has started 40 consecutive games at the sport's most physically demanding position in a conference that has produced the past three national champions. If he had chosen to go to the NFL, no one would have blinked. But Black felt he had more to accomplish. He wants to receive his degree in December. He wants a crack at a second national title. He wants to play one more season for Mikey.

Like so much in college football these days, the friendship between Black and Mikey Conger began with a post on an Internet message board.

Hey Michael, I recently saw your story and wanted to have the honor to write in your guest book. My name is Ciron Black. I am the left tackle for the LSU Tigers football team. I'm also number 70 and I saw you wearing that jersey number, that's a great number by the way :). You know some people see us as heroes because of how we play but the truth is people like yourself are the real heroes. I see all the small problems I face are nothing compared to the hardships that you may go through. God has a plan for all of us and for some reason he put it on my heart to write you tonight ... if it is at all possible I would love to talk to you. My number is xxx-xxx-xxxx anytime day or night if you need someone to talk to. Hang in there buddy and just know that anything is possible through Christ.

Your Friend,

Ciron Black

P.S. I would love to write your name on my wrist tape as I get ready to take the field on Jan. 7th for the national championship. Let me know if that is OK.

When Black, then a sophomore, posted that message on Mikey's page at CaringBridge.org in December 2007, 8-year-old Mikey lay in a bed at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. A reaction to a chemotherapy treatment had rendered Mikey paralyzed, nearly blind and unable to speak. Doctors had told Mikey's mother, Laurina, to plan on at least another year at the hospital. Knowing Mikey was an LSU football fan -- his parents named him after Mike the Tiger -- some friends of the family sent messages to several LSU players to keep Mikey in their prayers. Black, the son of two ministers from Tyler, Texas, did more than pray. After reading about Mikey's battle with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia on CaringBridge.org, he posted the above message to Mikey's guestbook.

Laurina remains convinced a desire to watch the BCS title game helped Mikey heal faster than anyone expected. "He knew that the LSU football team was getting ready to play that game," Laurina says. "That was a push. That was a real incentive for him to get well." So, too, was the care package that arrived from Baton Rouge. It contained the game ball Black had received for his role in the SEC championship game win against Tennessee, signed by the entire LSU team. "That's why we play the game," Black said. "For people like him."

Mikey watched the Tigers beat the Buckeyes from his hospital bed. In the third quarter, a Fox camera showed Black's left forearm wrapped in athletic tape with "Mikey" scrawled in marker. Later that month, Mikey went home. Not long after, Mikey met Black face-to-face. Though Mikey was confined to a wheelchair, he never let it dampen his spirits. "He never would let you know that he was hurting," Black says. "He always had a smile on his face."

When Mikey turned 9 last July, his parents took him to LSU to see the national championship crystal ball. Tipped off the Congers were visiting, Black and LSU coach Les Miles greeted the family with a birthday cake. Mikey, on his feet again, ran to Black and hugged him. The 314-pound lineman found himself wiping away tears. A few months later, Mikey and his father came to a game at Tiger Stadium. Black, in his third year as a starter, suddenly felt like a freshman playing his first game. "I don't think I've ever felt that nervous," Black says.

While the Congers celebrated a football season away from hospitals and chemo, the Tigers suffered on the field in a rebuilding season. Despite a wealth of talent, they went 8-5 (3-5 in the SEC). That wore on Black and his teammates, and it had more than a little to do with Black's decision to return. "We have a horrible taste in our mouths," Black said. "Last season, that's not us. That's not how we play. A lot of things went wrong. There's nobody to blame but ourselves."

Now Black returns to a team with a settled quarterback situation -- sophomore Jordan Jefferson has taken ownership of the starting job -- and an established back -- Scott ran for 1,174 yards and 18 touchdowns in 2008 -- taking handoffs. John Chavis, who spent the past 14 years coordinating Tennessee's defense, has come to Baton Rouge to restore the Tigers' roar on that side of the ball.

Mikey, meanwhile, should get plenty of chances to watch Black play this season. Earlier this month, he visited St. Jude and his doctor declared his disease remains in remission. "I'm not done yet," Mikey boasted to his mother's delight. This fall, Mikey, who just turned 10, will enter third grade. Black, meanwhile, will continue to refine his game. If Black helps bring LSU another national title, he'd happily dedicate it to the boy who inspires him every day. "I love him," Black says. "I'll be friends with him until the day I die."

Article: Danny Thomas Puts His Life and Work on Paper

When I started this blog, one of the first inspirations I drew upon was the story of Danny Thomas, who perhaps is considered the most recognized American devotee of St. Jude (mainly during the last half of the 20th century). This week, I would to follow-up two previous posts on Danny Thomas (here, and here) with another article on the entertainer and devotee (source link here).

Since its inception, this blog has drawn visitors and readers from more than 30 countries. My hope is to find and draw attention to the inspiration of and work by devotees of St. Jude from around the world, such as The School of St. Jude founded by Gemma Sisia (here).

"Blessed is he who knows why he was born."

Danny Thomas, 77 years and 1 day old, is sitting on a sofa at his midtown hotel comparing the comedians of today with the ones of his generation. "Most of the new comics have about six or seven great minutes," Mr. Thomas says. "After that, they have to garbage it up to be out there for maybe 20 minutes. In our day, you did an hour."

He raises his left hand to his mouth, and gray smoke from the long cigar that is clenched between his fingers drifts over his not-quite-as-gray hair. He reaches up to adjust the black-rimmed eyeglasses that somewhat disguise his trademark large hook nose, a nose that three movie producers -- Jack Warner, Louis B. Mayer and Harry Cohn -- could not persuade him to change.

"The new comics' subject matter is not deep enough," Mr. Thomas continues. "They don't get to the core of the people. There's really no substance, no universality to what they're doing. There's no artistry there." He takes another puff. "They have one big problem. They have to start on top. They go on the talk shows or to the big comedy clubs and the first time out they must be scared to death. They have no place to stink. We did. Oh, did we stink!" An Autobiography

The tale of the days in which he stank, as well as the years in which he soared, is told in in Mr. Thomas's autobiography, "Make Room for Danny," which he wrote with Bill Davidson and which is being published by G. P. Putnam's Sons.

It is the story of Muzyad Yakhoob (his name was later changed to Amos Jacobs, and his friends still call him Jake), the son of Lebanese immigrants who was born in Deerfield, Mich., on Jan. 6, 1914, and grew up with his eight brothers and one sister largely in Toledo, Ohio. It is the story of a high-school dropout who went into show business with the dream of becoming a character actor. (It is a dream he still pursues; his daughter Marlo Thomas is working on a movie for the two of them to do together.) He was a character actor on radio, although one of his first radio jobs was making the sound of horses' hooves on a "Lone Ranger" show by beating his chest with two toilet plungers.

But he had a yen for comedy and after rough beginnings became a night-club star, with the encouragement and assistance of Abe Lastfogel, then the head of the William Morris Agency. He took the name Danny Thomas, combining the first names of two of his brothers, at the 5100 Club in Chicago in 1940.

Then came movies, followed by major success on television in the situation comedy "Make Room for Daddy," later known as "The Danny Thomas Show," which ran from 1953 to 1964 and is still seen in reruns. And he became a successful television producer, first with Sheldon Leonard and then with Aaron Spelling, creating such shows as "The Real McCoys," "The Andy Griffith Show," "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and "The Mod Squad." No One-Liners

But through it all, he remained a comedian -- a special kind of comedian. Danny Thomas does not deliver one-liners. "My people are inherently storytellers," he explains. "When I was a kid, the entertainment was somebody from the old country or a big city who came and visited and told tales of where they came from. And my mother was very good at it. She could not read or write in any language, yet she would see silent movies and make up her own scenarios."

Of his comic tales, the one that is his signature is known as the Jack Story:

There's this traveling salesman who gets stuck one night on a lonely country road with a flat tire and no jack. So he starts walking toward a service station about a mile away, and as he walks, he talks to himself. "How much can he charge me for renting a jack?" he thinks. "One dollar, maybe two. But it's the middle of the night, so maybe there's an after-hours fee. Probably another five dollars. If he's anything like my brother-in-law, he'll figure I got no place else to go for the jack, so he's cornered the market and has me at his mercy. Ten dollars more."

He goes on walking and thinking, and the price and the anger keep rising. Finally, he gets to the service station and is greeted cheerfully by the owner: "What can I do for you, sir?" But the salesman will have none of it. "You got the nerve to talk to me, you robber," he says. "You can take your stinkin' jack and..."

Mr. Thomas laughs. "The story has the fundamentals of real comedy," he says. "Show me a man or a woman in trouble, and I'll show you a funny man or woman. People can relate to it. They have all been in situations where they suffered anticipation and slow burn, and those are two great commodities in comedy." A Vow Fulfilled

Through the years Mr. Thomas has been known for his deep religious faith. (Bob Hope's one-liner on the subject is that his friend Danny is so religious the highway patrol stops him for having stained-glass windows in his car.) The classic tale about Mr. Thomas is that early in his career, when things were not going well and after his wife, the former Rose Marie Cassaniti, had urged him to leave show business, he prayed to St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of the hopeless, impossible and difficult cases, asking the saint to set him on the right path. He vowed that if the saint did so he would build him a shrine. To this day, Mr. Thomas says, he believes in the saint, and still has conversations with him.

"After that, everything happened to me so quickly that it had to be more than a coincidence," he says. "I never prayed for fame and fortune. I wasn't trying to do anything but make a living. I was hoping that the radio producers would have more faith in my ability to play character roles. All I wanted was to get a house in the country, buy a station wagon, raise my kids."

The shrine he built, with the help of many other people, turned out to be the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. And, he says, there is no doubt in his mind that the hospital is his most important accomplishment.

"There's no question of it," he says proudly. "That's my epitaph. It's right on the cornerstone: Danny Thomas, founder."

He still spends much of his time raising money for the hospital. "We raised $92 million last year," he says, "and spent only 22 cents on the dollar to raise it."

It is, he is convinced, the reason he was born. A while back, he had a family coat of arms designed, with a family motto. "The motto is 'Blessed is he who knows why he was born,'" he says. "And I am blessed."

"I never prayed for fame and fortune," said Danny Thomas during an interview. "I wasn't trying to do anything but make a living."

Danny's Promise

As a follow-on to last Sunday's post, the following is taken from the website of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.A.), entitled Danny's Promise. This week, I'd like to continue exploring Danny Thomas' prayers to St. Jude and, ultimately, his pledge to this saint. Click here to read the original information.

"More than 70 years ago, Danny Thomas, then a struggling young entertainer with a baby on the way, visited a Detroit church and was so moved during the Mass, he placed his last $7 in the collection box. When he realized what he’d done, Danny Thomas prayed for a way to pay the looming hospital bills. The next day, he was offered a small part that would pay 10 times the amount he’d given to the church. Danny Thomas had experienced the power of prayer.

Two years later, Danny Thomas had achieved moderate acting success in Detroit, but he was struggling to take his career to the next level. Once again, he turned to the church. Praying to St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of hopeless causes, Danny Thomas asked the saint to “help me find my way in life, and I will build you a shrine.”

His career took a turn for the better, and soon he moved his family to Chicago to pursue career offers. A few years later, at another turning point in his life, Danny Thomas visited a church and remembered his pledge to St. Jude. Again he prayed to St. Jude and repeated his pledge to build a shrine to the saint if he would show him the way.

In the years that followed, Danny Thomas’ career flourished through films and television, and he became an internationally known entertainer. He remembered his pledge to build a shrine to St. Jude.

In the early 1950s, Danny Thomas began discussing with friends what concrete form his vow might take. Gradually, the idea of a children’s hospital, possibly in Memphis, Tenn., took shape. In 1955, Danny Thomas and a group of Memphis businessmen who had agreed to help support his dream seized on the idea of creating a unique research hospital devoted to curing catastrophic diseases in children. More than just a treatment facility, this would be a research center for the children of the world.

Danny Thomas started raising money for his vision of St. Jude in the early 1950s. By 1955, the local business leaders who had joined his cause began area fundraising efforts, supplementing Danny Thomas’ benefit shows that brought scores of major entertainment stars to Memphis. Often accompanied by his wife, Rose Marie, Danny Thomas crisscrossed the United States by car talking about his dream and raising funds at meetings and benefits. The pace was so hectic that Danny Thomas and his wife once visited 28 cities in 32 days. Although Danny Thomas and his friends raised the money to build the hospital, they now faced the daunting task of funding its annual operation.

To solve this problem, Danny Thomas turned to his fellow Americans of Arabic-speaking heritage. Believing deeply that these Americans should, as a group, thank the United States for the gifts of freedom given their parents, Danny Thomas also felt the support of St. Jude would be a noble way of honoring his immigrant forefathers who had come to America.

Danny Thomas’ request struck a responsive chord. In 1957, 100 representatives of the Arab-American community met in Chicago to form ALSAC® with a sole purpose of raising funds for the support of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Since that time, with national headquarters in Memphis and regional offices throughout the United States, ALSAC has assumed full responsibility for all the hospital’s fundraising efforts, raising hundreds of millions annually through benefits and solicitation drives among Americans of all ethnic, religious and racial backgrounds. Today, ALSAC is the nation’s second largest health-care charity and is supported by the efforts of more than 1 million volunteers nationwide.

Through striking improvements in the care of pediatric leukemias and numerous forms of solid tumors, St. Jude – which now has a daily operating cost of nearly $1.3 million – has brought about improved health care for children all over the world.

From a promise of “Help me find my way in life, and I will build you a shrine” to the fulfillment of his dream, Danny Thomas lived to see his little hospital become an international beacon of hope for the catastrophically ill children of the world. The founder of St. Jude and ALSAC died on February 6, 1991, just two days after joining patients, parents and employees to celebrate the hospital’s 29th anniversary. He was laid to rest in a family crypt at the Danny Thomas/ALSAC Pavilion on the grounds of the hospital. On July 12, 2000, his wife, Rose Marie, passed away and now lies with her beloved husband in the hospital’s Memorial Garden. Today, their children, Marlo, Terre and Tony, carry on their parents’ work and remain a driving force in fulfilling their father’s mission. Danny Thomas is gone, but his dream lives on."

Again, the following is taken from the hospital's website. Memorable Moments chronicles some of the important milestones and achievements throughout its history, from 1957 when the St. Jude story began, to present day; click here.

Danny Thomas and St. Jude

The following is taken from the website of The National Shrine of St. Jude (Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.), where it was compiled from How St. Jude Came to Chicago by Jack Kuenster. Click here to read the original information.

"Perhaps the most nationally recognized devotee of Saint Jude during the last half of the 20th century was Danny Thomas, once a little known nightclub entertainer who soared to countrywide popularity as the star of the television show “Make Room for Daddy” from 1953 to 1964.

Thomas never hid his attachment to Saint Jude, and origins of that devotion date back to the spring of 1940 when Thomas first heard of Saint Jude from a stagehand in Detroit. The stagehand told him his wife had made a seemingly miraculous recovery from cancer, and that recovery, he insisted, came through his prayers to Saint Jude.

At the time, Thomas was struggling to make a go of it in show business. He had done some radio and nightclub work, having gone to Detroit from Toledo, Ohio, where he had grown up in a large family and had changed his name from Muzyad Amos Yakhoob to Amos Jacobs. He was averaging about $45 a week, and when his wife, Rose Marie, delivered the first of their three children, he knew he needed help. So, remembering the stagehand’s profession of faith, he began making short prayers to Saint Jude, asking for the saint’s intercession “to show me my way in life.” He prayed for strength to succeed in his profession and promised he would “do something big” in Jude’s name if he managed to gain a measure of economic security.
Before long he traveled to Chicago, where he landed a $50-a-week job doing radio commercials. Shortly thereafter, talent agent Leo Salkin booked him into the 5100 Club on the city’s north side for $75 a week. At that juncture, he again changed his name from Amos Jacobs to Danny Thomas. He soon became a nightclub sensation, earning $500 a week and drawing customers from all over the city to listen to his outrageously funny stories, which he told in different dialects while deftly skewering human vanity and stupidity. And, although he had his audience laughing uproariously, he never resorted to using vulgar language.
His lengthy night shows on Saturdays ran far into the morning hours, and when he was finished, he went to 6 a.m. Mass at St. Clement Church on his way home. It was at the church one day that he noticed a leaflet on a pew. He read the leaflet and learned about a solemn novena to Saint Jude that was then held four times every year at the National Shrine of St. Jude at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on the far southeast side of Chicago.

It was the first he knew that St. Jude’s home was in Chicago. In reading about the Shrine he realized, in the midst of his newly-found professional success, he had completely forgotten his earlier prayers and promises to Saint Jude. While renewing his devotion to the “forgotten apostle,” he planned on somehow showing the church appreciation for his prayers being answered.

Thomas’ life changed dramatically again a few weeks after that. His agent persuaded him to take his comedy routine to New York City, where he was booked into the Club Martinique. From that point on, he moved into the entertainment world’s big time. After USO tours in both Europe and the Pacific, Thomas was engaged to perform at New York’s Roxy Theater at $3,750 a week. He later performed in the most popular nightclubs from coast to coast, broke into movies, playing in “I’ll See You in My Dreams” and “The Jazz Singer” and finally, starting in 1953, he achieved his greatest fame through his starring role in the long-running television comedy series “Make Room for Daddy.”

Thomas’ “big gift” to St. Jude included devotion through the National Shrine of St. Jude and the Claretians in Chicago, and ultimately the world-famous St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

Thomas died in California of a heart attack at age 78 in 1991."

Danny's Promise

As a follow-on to last Sunday's post, the following is taken from the website of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.A.), entitled Danny's Promise. This week, I'd like to continue exploring Danny Thomas' prayers to St. Jude and, ultimately, his pledge to this saint. Click here to read the original information.

"More than 70 years ago, Danny Thomas, then a struggling young entertainer with a baby on the way, visited a Detroit church and was so moved during the Mass, he placed his last $7 in the collection box. When he realized what he’d done, Danny Thomas prayed for a way to pay the looming hospital bills. The next day, he was offered a small part that would pay 10 times the amount he’d given to the church. Danny Thomas had experienced the power of prayer.

Two years later, Danny Thomas had achieved moderate acting success in Detroit, but he was struggling to take his career to the next level. Once again, he turned to the church. Praying to St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of hopeless causes, Danny Thomas asked the saint to “help me find my way in life, and I will build you a shrine.”

His career took a turn for the better, and soon he moved his family to Chicago to pursue career offers. A few years later, at another turning point in his life, Danny Thomas visited a church and remembered his pledge to St. Jude. Again he prayed to St. Jude and repeated his pledge to build a shrine to the saint if he would show him the way.

In the years that followed, Danny Thomas’ career flourished through films and television, and he became an internationally known entertainer. He remembered his pledge to build a shrine to St. Jude.

In the early 1950s, Danny Thomas began discussing with friends what concrete form his vow might take. Gradually, the idea of a children’s hospital, possibly in Memphis, Tenn., took shape. In 1955, Danny Thomas and a group of Memphis businessmen who had agreed to help support his dream seized on the idea of creating a unique research hospital devoted to curing catastrophic diseases in children. More than just a treatment facility, this would be a research center for the children of the world.

Danny Thomas started raising money for his vision of St. Jude in the early 1950s. By 1955, the local business leaders who had joined his cause began area fundraising efforts, supplementing Danny Thomas’ benefit shows that brought scores of major entertainment stars to Memphis. Often accompanied by his wife, Rose Marie, Danny Thomas crisscrossed the United States by car talking about his dream and raising funds at meetings and benefits. The pace was so hectic that Danny Thomas and his wife once visited 28 cities in 32 days. Although Danny Thomas and his friends raised the money to build the hospital, they now faced the daunting task of funding its annual operation.

To solve this problem, Danny Thomas turned to his fellow Americans of Arabic-speaking heritage. Believing deeply that these Americans should, as a group, thank the United States for the gifts of freedom given their parents, Danny Thomas also felt the support of St. Jude would be a noble way of honoring his immigrant forefathers who had come to America.

Danny Thomas’ request struck a responsive chord. In 1957, 100 representatives of the Arab-American community met in Chicago to form ALSAC® with a sole purpose of raising funds for the support of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Since that time, with national headquarters in Memphis and regional offices throughout the United States, ALSAC has assumed full responsibility for all the hospital’s fundraising efforts, raising hundreds of millions annually through benefits and solicitation drives among Americans of all ethnic, religious and racial backgrounds. Today, ALSAC is the nation’s second largest health-care charity and is supported by the efforts of more than 1 million volunteers nationwide.

Through striking improvements in the care of pediatric leukemias and numerous forms of solid tumors, St. Jude – which now has a daily operating cost of nearly $1.3 million – has brought about improved health care for children all over the world.

From a promise of “Help me find my way in life, and I will build you a shrine” to the fulfillment of his dream, Danny Thomas lived to see his little hospital become an international beacon of hope for the catastrophically ill children of the world. The founder of St. Jude and ALSAC died on February 6, 1991, just two days after joining patients, parents and employees to celebrate the hospital’s 29th anniversary. He was laid to rest in a family crypt at the Danny Thomas/ALSAC Pavilion on the grounds of the hospital. On July 12, 2000, his wife, Rose Marie, passed away and now lies with her beloved husband in the hospital’s Memorial Garden. Today, their children, Marlo, Terre and Tony, carry on their parents’ work and remain a driving force in fulfilling their father’s mission. Danny Thomas is gone, but his dream lives on."

Again, the following is taken from the hospital's website. Memorable Moments chronicles some of the important milestones and achievements throughout its history, from 1957 when the St. Jude story began, to present day in 2008; click here.

Danny Thomas and St. Jude

The following is taken from the website of The National Shrine of St. Jude (Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.), where it was compiled from How St. Jude Came to Chicago by Jack Kuenster. Click here to read the original information.

"Perhaps the most nationally recognized devotee of Saint Jude during the last half of the 20th century was Danny Thomas, once a little known nightclub entertainer who soared to countrywide popularity as the star of the television show “Make Room for Daddy” from 1953 to 1964.

Thomas never hid his attachment to Saint Jude, and origins of that devotion date back to the spring of 1940 when Thomas first heard of Saint Jude from a stagehand in Detroit. The stagehand told him his wife had made a seemingly miraculous recovery from cancer, and that recovery, he insisted, came through his prayers to Saint Jude.

At the time, Thomas was struggling to make a go of it in show business. He had done some radio and nightclub work, having gone to Detroit from Toledo, Ohio, where he had grown up in a large family and had changed his name from Muzyad Amos Yakhoob to Amos Jacobs. He was averaging about $45 a week, and when his wife, Rose Marie, delivered the first of their three children, he knew he needed help. So, remembering the stagehand’s profession of faith, he began making short prayers to Saint Jude, asking for the saint’s intercession “to show me my way in life.” He prayed for strength to succeed in his profession and promised he would “do something big” in Jude’s name if he managed to gain a measure of economic security.Before long he traveled to Chicago, where he landed a $50-a-week job doing radio commercials. Shortly thereafter, talent agent Leo Salkin booked him into the 5100 Club on the city’s north side for $75 a week. At that juncture, he again changed his name from Amos Jacobs to Danny Thomas. He soon became a nightclub sensation, earning $500 a week and drawing customers from all over the city to listen to his outrageously funny stories, which he told in different dialects while deftly skewering human vanity and stupidity. And, although he had his audience laughing uproariously, he never resorted to using vulgar language.His lengthy night shows on Saturdays ran far into the morning hours, and when he was finished, he went to 6 a.m. Mass at St. Clement Church on his way home. It was at the church one day that he noticed a leaflet on a pew. He read the leaflet and learned about a solemn novena to Saint Jude that was then held four times every year at the National Shrine of St. Jude at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on the far southeast side of Chicago.

It was the first he knew that St. Jude’s home was in Chicago. In reading about the Shrine he realized, in the midst of his newly-found professional success, he had completely forgotten his earlier prayers and promises to Saint Jude. While renewing his devotion to the “forgotten apostle,” he planned on somehow showing the church appreciation for his prayers being answered.

Thomas’ life changed dramatically again a few weeks after that. His agent persuaded him to take his comedy routine to New York City, where he was booked into the Club Martinique. From that point on, he moved into the entertainment world’s big time. After USO tours in both Europe and the Pacific, Thomas was engaged to perform at New York’s Roxy Theater at $3,750 a week. He later performed in the most popular nightclubs from coast to coast, broke into movies, playing in “I’ll See You in My Dreams” and “The Jazz Singer” and finally, starting in 1953, he achieved his greatest fame through his starring role in the long-running television comedy series “Make Room for Daddy.”

Thomas’ “big gift” to St. Jude included devotion through the National Shrine of St. Jude and the Claretians in Chicago, and ultimately the world-famous St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

Thomas died in California of a heart attack at age 78 in 1991."

Article: Danny Thomas Puts His Life and Work on Paper

When I started this blog, one of the first inspirations I drew upon was the story of Danny Thomas, who perhaps is considered the most recognized American devotee of St. Jude (mainly during the last half of the 20th century). This week, I would to follow-up two previous posts on Danny Thomas (here, and here) with another article on the entertainer and devotee (source link here).

Since its inception, this blog has drawn visitors and readers from more than 30 countries. My hope is to find and draw attention to the inspiration of and work by devotees of St. Jude from around the world, such as The School of St. Jude founded by Gemma Sisia (here).

"Blessed is he who knows why he was born."

Danny Thomas, 77 years and 1 day old, is sitting on a sofa at his midtown hotel comparing the comedians of today with the ones of his generation. "Most of the new comics have about six or seven great minutes," Mr. Thomas says. "After that, they have to garbage it up to be out there for maybe 20 minutes. In our day, you did an hour."

He raises his left hand to his mouth, and gray smoke from the long cigar that is clenched between his fingers drifts over his not-quite-as-gray hair. He reaches up to adjust the black-rimmed eyeglasses that somewhat disguise his trademark large hook nose, a nose that three movie producers -- Jack Warner, Louis B. Mayer and Harry Cohn -- could not persuade him to change.

"The new comics' subject matter is not deep enough," Mr. Thomas continues. "They don't get to the core of the people. There's really no substance, no universality to what they're doing. There's no artistry there." He takes another puff. "They have one big problem. They have to start on top. They go on the talk shows or to the big comedy clubs and the first time out they must be scared to death. They have no place to stink. We did. Oh, did we stink!" An Autobiography

The tale of the days in which he stank, as well as the years in which he soared, is told in in Mr. Thomas's autobiography, "Make Room for Danny," which he wrote with Bill Davidson and which is being published by G. P. Putnam's Sons.

It is the story of Muzyad Yakhoob (his name was later changed to Amos Jacobs, and his friends still call him Jake), the son of Lebanese immigrants who was born in Deerfield, Mich., on Jan. 6, 1914, and grew up with his eight brothers and one sister largely in Toledo, Ohio. It is the story of a high-school dropout who went into show business with the dream of becoming a character actor. (It is a dream he still pursues; his daughter Marlo Thomas is working on a movie for the two of them to do together.) He was a character actor on radio, although one of his first radio jobs was making the sound of horses' hooves on a "Lone Ranger" show by beating his chest with two toilet plungers.

But he had a yen for comedy and after rough beginnings became a night-club star, with the encouragement and assistance of Abe Lastfogel, then the head of the William Morris Agency. He took the name Danny Thomas, combining the first names of two of his brothers, at the 5100 Club in Chicago in 1940.

Then came movies, followed by major success on television in the situation comedy "Make Room for Daddy," later known as "The Danny Thomas Show," which ran from 1953 to 1964 and is still seen in reruns. And he became a successful television producer, first with Sheldon Leonard and then with Aaron Spelling, creating such shows as "The Real McCoys," "The Andy Griffith Show," "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and "The Mod Squad." No One-Liners

But through it all, he remained a comedian -- a special kind of comedian. Danny Thomas does not deliver one-liners. "My people are inherently storytellers," he explains. "When I was a kid, the entertainment was somebody from the old country or a big city who came and visited and told tales of where they came from. And my mother was very good at it. She could not read or write in any language, yet she would see silent movies and make up her own scenarios."

Of his comic tales, the one that is his signature is known as the Jack Story:

There's this traveling salesman who gets stuck one night on a lonely country road with a flat tire and no jack. So he starts walking toward a service station about a mile away, and as he walks, he talks to himself. "How much can he charge me for renting a jack?" he thinks. "One dollar, maybe two. But it's the middle of the night, so maybe there's an after-hours fee. Probably another five dollars. If he's anything like my brother-in-law, he'll figure I got no place else to go for the jack, so he's cornered the market and has me at his mercy. Ten dollars more."

He goes on walking and thinking, and the price and the anger keep rising. Finally, he gets to the service station and is greeted cheerfully by the owner: "What can I do for you, sir?" But the salesman will have none of it. "You got the nerve to talk to me, you robber," he says. "You can take your stinkin' jack and..."

Mr. Thomas laughs. "The story has the fundamentals of real comedy," he says. "Show me a man or a woman in trouble, and I'll show you a funny man or woman. People can relate to it. They have all been in situations where they suffered anticipation and slow burn, and those are two great commodities in comedy." A Vow Fulfilled

Through the years Mr. Thomas has been known for his deep religious faith. (Bob Hope's one-liner on the subject is that his friend Danny is so religious the highway patrol stops him for having stained-glass windows in his car.) The classic tale about Mr. Thomas is that early in his career, when things were not going well and after his wife, the former Rose Marie Cassaniti, had urged him to leave show business, he prayed to St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of the hopeless, impossible and difficult cases, asking the saint to set him on the right path. He vowed that if the saint did so he would build him a shrine. To this day, Mr. Thomas says, he believes in the saint, and still has conversations with him.

"After that, everything happened to me so quickly that it had to be more than a coincidence," he says. "I never prayed for fame and fortune. I wasn't trying to do anything but make a living. I was hoping that the radio producers would have more faith in my ability to play character roles. All I wanted was to get a house in the country, buy a station wagon, raise my kids."

The shrine he built, with the help of many other people, turned out to be the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. And, he says, there is no doubt in his mind that the hospital is his most important accomplishment.

"There's no question of it," he says proudly. "That's my epitaph. It's right on the cornerstone: Danny Thomas, founder."

He still spends much of his time raising money for the hospital. "We raised $92 million last year," he says, "and spent only 22 cents on the dollar to raise it."

It is, he is convinced, the reason he was born. A while back, he had a family coat of arms designed, with a family motto. "The motto is 'Blessed is he who knows why he was born,'" he says. "And I am blessed."

"I never prayed for fame and fortune," said Danny Thomas during an interview. "I wasn't trying to do anything but make a living."

Article: LSU tackle Ciron Black playing for more than just a title in 2009

A story from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Danny Thomas' legacy and offering of thanks to St. Jude Thaddeus (see source link here), authored by Andy Staples of Inside College Football at SI.com.

Tailback Charles Scott didn't decide whether to return for his senior season at LSU until he heard from the behemoth who paves his path to the end zone. "Of course, I was looking at if Ciron was leaving," Scott said in January. "If I'd have my big boy back."

Scott's big boy, LSU left tackle Ciron Black, has started 40 consecutive games at the sport's most physically demanding position in a conference that has produced the past three national champions. If he had chosen to go to the NFL, no one would have blinked. But Black felt he had more to accomplish. He wants to receive his degree in December. He wants a crack at a second national title. He wants to play one more season for Mikey.

Like so much in college football these days, the friendship between Black and Mikey Conger began with a post on an Internet message board.

Hey Michael, I recently saw your story and wanted to have the honor to write in your guest book. My name is Ciron Black. I am the left tackle for the LSU Tigers football team. I'm also number 70 and I saw you wearing that jersey number, that's a great number by the way :). You know some people see us as heroes because of how we play but the truth is people like yourself are the real heroes. I see all the small problems I face are nothing compared to the hardships that you may go through. God has a plan for all of us and for some reason he put it on my heart to write you tonight ... if it is at all possible I would love to talk to you. My number is xxx-xxx-xxxx anytime day or night if you need someone to talk to. Hang in there buddy and just know that anything is possible through Christ.

Your Friend,

Ciron Black

P.S. I would love to write your name on my wrist tape as I get ready to take the field on Jan. 7th for the national championship. Let me know if that is OK.

When Black, then a sophomore, posted that message on Mikey's page at CaringBridge.org in December 2007, 8-year-old Mikey lay in a bed at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. A reaction to a chemotherapy treatment had rendered Mikey paralyzed, nearly blind and unable to speak. Doctors had told Mikey's mother, Laurina, to plan on at least another year at the hospital. Knowing Mikey was an LSU football fan -- his parents named him after Mike the Tiger -- some friends of the family sent messages to several LSU players to keep Mikey in their prayers. Black, the son of two ministers from Tyler, Texas, did more than pray. After reading about Mikey's battle with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia on CaringBridge.org, he posted the above message to Mikey's guestbook.

Laurina remains convinced a desire to watch the BCS title game helped Mikey heal faster than anyone expected. "He knew that the LSU football team was getting ready to play that game," Laurina says. "That was a push. That was a real incentive for him to get well." So, too, was the care package that arrived from Baton Rouge. It contained the game ball Black had received for his role in the SEC championship game win against Tennessee, signed by the entire LSU team. "That's why we play the game," Black said. "For people like him."

Mikey watched the Tigers beat the Buckeyes from his hospital bed. In the third quarter, a Fox camera showed Black's left forearm wrapped in athletic tape with "Mikey" scrawled in marker. Later that month, Mikey went home. Not long after, Mikey met Black face-to-face. Though Mikey was confined to a wheelchair, he never let it dampen his spirits. "He never would let you know that he was hurting," Black says. "He always had a smile on his face."

When Mikey turned 9 last July, his parents took him to LSU to see the national championship crystal ball. Tipped off the Congers were visiting, Black and LSU coach Les Miles greeted the family with a birthday cake. Mikey, on his feet again, ran to Black and hugged him. The 314-pound lineman found himself wiping away tears. A few months later, Mikey and his father came to a game at Tiger Stadium. Black, in his third year as a starter, suddenly felt like a freshman playing his first game. "I don't think I've ever felt that nervous," Black says.

While the Congers celebrated a football season away from hospitals and chemo, the Tigers suffered on the field in a rebuilding season. Despite a wealth of talent, they went 8-5 (3-5 in the SEC). That wore on Black and his teammates, and it had more than a little to do with Black's decision to return. "We have a horrible taste in our mouths," Black said. "Last season, that's not us. That's not how we play. A lot of things went wrong. There's nobody to blame but ourselves."

Now Black returns to a team with a settled quarterback situation -- sophomore Jordan Jefferson has taken ownership of the starting job -- and an established back -- Scott ran for 1,174 yards and 18 touchdowns in 2008 -- taking handoffs. John Chavis, who spent the past 14 years coordinating Tennessee's defense, has come to Baton Rouge to restore the Tigers' roar on that side of the ball.

Mikey, meanwhile, should get plenty of chances to watch Black play this season. Earlier this month, he visited St. Jude and his doctor declared his disease remains in remission. "I'm not done yet," Mikey boasted to his mother's delight. This fall, Mikey, who just turned 10, will enter third grade. Black, meanwhile, will continue to refine his game. If Black helps bring LSU another national title, he'd happily dedicate it to the boy who inspires him every day. "I love him," Black says. "I'll be friends with him until the day I die."

Article: Danny Thomas Puts His Life and Work on Paper

When I started this blog, one of the first inspirations I drew upon was the story of Danny Thomas, who perhaps is considered the most recognized American devotee of St. Jude (mainly during the last half of the 20th century). This week, I would to follow-up two previous posts on Danny Thomas (here, and here) with another article on the entertainer and devotee (source link here).

Since its inception, this blog has drawn visitors and readers from 140 countries. My hope is to find and draw attention to the inspiration of and work by devotees of St. Jude from around the world, such as The School of St. Jude founded by Gemma Sisia (here).

"Blessed is he who knows why he was born."

Danny Thomas, 77 years and 1 day old, is sitting on a sofa at his midtown hotel comparing the comedians of today with the ones of his generation. "Most of the new comics have about six or seven great minutes," Mr. Thomas says. "After that, they have to garbage it up to be out there for maybe 20 minutes. In our day, you did an hour."

He raises his left hand to his mouth, and gray smoke from the long cigar that is clenched between his fingers drifts over his not-quite-as-gray hair. He reaches up to adjust the black-rimmed eyeglasses that somewhat disguise his trademark large hook nose, a nose that three movie producers -- Jack Warner, Louis B. Mayer and Harry Cohn -- could not persuade him to change.

"The new comics' subject matter is not deep enough," Mr. Thomas continues. "They don't get to the core of the people. There's really no substance, no universality to what they're doing. There's no artistry there." He takes another puff. "They have one big problem. They have to start on top. They go on the talk shows or to the big comedy clubs and the first time out they must be scared to death. They have no place to stink. We did. Oh, did we stink!" An Autobiography

The tale of the days in which he stank, as well as the years in which he soared, is told in in Mr. Thomas's autobiography, "Make Room for Danny," which he wrote with Bill Davidson and which is being published by G. P. Putnam's Sons.

It is the story of Muzyad Yakhoob (his name was later changed to Amos Jacobs, and his friends still call him Jake), the son of Lebanese immigrants who was born in Deerfield, Mich., on Jan. 6, 1914, and grew up with his eight brothers and one sister largely in Toledo, Ohio. It is the story of a high-school dropout who went into show business with the dream of becoming a character actor. (It is a dream he still pursues; his daughter Marlo Thomas is working on a movie for the two of them to do together.) He was a character actor on radio, although one of his first radio jobs was making the sound of horses' hooves on a "Lone Ranger" show by beating his chest with two toilet plungers.

But he had a yen for comedy and after rough beginnings became a night-club star, with the encouragement and assistance of Abe Lastfogel, then the head of the William Morris Agency. He took the name Danny Thomas, combining the first names of two of his brothers, at the 5100 Club in Chicago in 1940.

Then came movies, followed by major success on television in the situation comedy "Make Room for Daddy," later known as "The Danny Thomas Show," which ran from 1953 to 1964 and is still seen in reruns. And he became a successful television producer, first with Sheldon Leonard and then with Aaron Spelling, creating such shows as "The Real McCoys," "The Andy Griffith Show," "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and "The Mod Squad." No One-Liners

But through it all, he remained a comedian -- a special kind of comedian. Danny Thomas does not deliver one-liners. "My people are inherently storytellers," he explains. "When I was a kid, the entertainment was somebody from the old country or a big city who came and visited and told tales of where they came from. And my mother was very good at it. She could not read or write in any language, yet she would see silent movies and make up her own scenarios."

Of his comic tales, the one that is his signature is known as the Jack Story:

There's this traveling salesman who gets stuck one night on a lonely country road with a flat tire and no jack. So he starts walking toward a service station about a mile away, and as he walks, he talks to himself. "How much can he charge me for renting a jack?" he thinks. "One dollar, maybe two. But it's the middle of the night, so maybe there's an after-hours fee. Probably another five dollars. If he's anything like my brother-in-law, he'll figure I got no place else to go for the jack, so he's cornered the market and has me at his mercy. Ten dollars more."

He goes on walking and thinking, and the price and the anger keep rising. Finally, he gets to the service station and is greeted cheerfully by the owner: "What can I do for you, sir?" But the salesman will have none of it. "You got the nerve to talk to me, you robber," he says. "You can take your stinkin' jack and..."

Mr. Thomas laughs. "The story has the fundamentals of real comedy," he says. "Show me a man or a woman in trouble, and I'll show you a funny man or woman. People can relate to it. They have all been in situations where they suffered anticipation and slow burn, and those are two great commodities in comedy." A Vow Fulfilled

Through the years Mr. Thomas has been known for his deep religious faith. (Bob Hope's one-liner on the subject is that his friend Danny is so religious the highway patrol stops him for having stained-glass windows in his car.) The classic tale about Mr. Thomas is that early in his career, when things were not going well and after his wife, the former Rose Marie Cassaniti, had urged him to leave show business, he prayed to St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of the hopeless, impossible and difficult cases, asking the saint to set him on the right path. He vowed that if the saint did so he would build him a shrine. To this day, Mr. Thomas says, he believes in the saint, and still has conversations with him.

"After that, everything happened to me so quickly that it had to be more than a coincidence," he says. "I never prayed for fame and fortune. I wasn't trying to do anything but make a living. I was hoping that the radio producers would have more faith in my ability to play character roles. All I wanted was to get a house in the country, buy a station wagon, raise my kids."

The shrine he built, with the help of many other people, turned out to be the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. And, he says, there is no doubt in his mind that the hospital is his most important accomplishment.

"There's no question of it," he says proudly. "That's my epitaph. It's right on the cornerstone: Danny Thomas, founder."

He still spends much of his time raising money for the hospital. "We raised $92 million last year," he says, "and spent only 22 cents on the dollar to raise it."

It is, he is convinced, the reason he was born. A while back, he had a family coat of arms designed, with a family motto. "The motto is 'Blessed is he who knows why he was born,'" he says. "And I am blessed."

"I never prayed for fame and fortune," said Danny Thomas during an interview. "I wasn't trying to do anything but make a living."

Danny's Promise

As a follow-on to our post on November 21, the following is taken from the website of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.A.), entitled Danny's Promise. This week, I'd like to continue exploring Danny Thomas' prayers to St. Jude and, ultimately, his pledge to this saint. Click here to read the original information.

"More than 70 years ago, Danny Thomas, then a struggling young entertainer with a baby on the way, visited a Detroit church and was so moved during the Mass, he placed his last $7 in the collection box. When he realized what he’d done, Danny Thomas prayed for a way to pay the looming hospital bills. The next day, he was offered a small part that would pay 10 times the amount he’d given to the church. Danny Thomas had experienced the power of prayer.

Two years later, Danny Thomas had achieved moderate acting success in Detroit, but he was struggling to take his career to the next level. Once again, he turned to the church. Praying to St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of hopeless causes, Danny Thomas asked the saint to “help me find my way in life, and I will build you a shrine.”

His career took a turn for the better, and soon he moved his family to Chicago to pursue career offers. A few years later, at another turning point in his life, Danny Thomas visited a church and remembered his pledge to St. Jude. Again he prayed to St. Jude and repeated his pledge to build a shrine to the saint if he would show him the way.

In the years that followed, Danny Thomas’ career flourished through films and television, and he became an internationally known entertainer. He remembered his pledge to build a shrine to St. Jude.

In the early 1950s, Danny Thomas began discussing with friends what concrete form his vow might take. Gradually, the idea of a children’s hospital, possibly in Memphis, Tenn., took shape. In 1955, Danny Thomas and a group of Memphis businessmen who had agreed to help support his dream seized on the idea of creating a unique research hospital devoted to curing catastrophic diseases in children. More than just a treatment facility, this would be a research center for the children of the world.

Danny Thomas started raising money for his vision of St. Jude in the early 1950s. By 1955, the local business leaders who had joined his cause began area fundraising efforts, supplementing Danny Thomas’ benefit shows that brought scores of major entertainment stars to Memphis. Often accompanied by his wife, Rose Marie, Danny Thomas crisscrossed the United States by car talking about his dream and raising funds at meetings and benefits. The pace was so hectic that Danny Thomas and his wife once visited 28 cities in 32 days. Although Danny Thomas and his friends raised the money to build the hospital, they now faced the daunting task of funding its annual operation.

To solve this problem, Danny Thomas turned to his fellow Americans of Arabic-speaking heritage. Believing deeply that these Americans should, as a group, thank the United States for the gifts of freedom given their parents, Danny Thomas also felt the support of St. Jude would be a noble way of honoring his immigrant forefathers who had come to America.

Danny Thomas’ request struck a responsive chord. In 1957, 100 representatives of the Arab-American community met in Chicago to form ALSAC® with a sole purpose of raising funds for the support of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Since that time, with national headquarters in Memphis and regional offices throughout the United States, ALSAC has assumed full responsibility for all the hospital’s fundraising efforts, raising hundreds of millions annually through benefits and solicitation drives among Americans of all ethnic, religious and racial backgrounds. Today, ALSAC is the nation’s second largest health-care charity and is supported by the efforts of more than 1 million volunteers nationwide.

Through striking improvements in the care of pediatric leukemias and numerous forms of solid tumors, St. Jude – which now has a daily operating cost of nearly $1.3 million – has brought about improved health care for children all over the world.

From a promise of “Help me find my way in life, and I will build you a shrine” to the fulfillment of his dream, Danny Thomas lived to see his little hospital become an international beacon of hope for the catastrophically ill children of the world. The founder of St. Jude and ALSAC died on February 6, 1991, just two days after joining patients, parents and employees to celebrate the hospital’s 29th anniversary. He was laid to rest in a family crypt at the Danny Thomas/ALSAC Pavilion on the grounds of the hospital. On July 12, 2000, his wife, Rose Marie, passed away and now lies with her beloved husband in the hospital’s Memorial Garden. Today, their children, Marlo, Terre and Tony, carry on their parents’ work and remain a driving force in fulfilling their father’s mission. Danny Thomas is gone, but his dream lives on."

Again, the following is taken from the hospital's website. Memorable Moments chronicles some of the important milestones and achievements throughout its history, from 1957 when the St. Jude story began, to present day in 2008; click here.

Danny Thomas and St. Jude

The following is taken from the website of The National Shrine of St. Jude (Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.), where it was compiled from How St. Jude Came to Chicago by Jack Kuenster. Click here to read the original information.

"Perhaps the most nationally recognized devotee of Saint Jude during the last half of the 20th century was Danny Thomas, once a little known nightclub entertainer who soared to countrywide popularity as the star of the television show “Make Room for Daddy” from 1953 to 1964.

Thomas never hid his attachment to Saint Jude, and origins of that devotion date back to the spring of 1940 when Thomas first heard of Saint Jude from a stagehand in Detroit. The stagehand told him his wife had made a seemingly miraculous recovery from cancer, and that recovery, he insisted, came through his prayers to Saint Jude.

At the time, Thomas was struggling to make a go of it in show business. He had done some radio and nightclub work, having gone to Detroit from Toledo, Ohio, where he had grown up in a large family and had changed his name from Muzyad Amos Yakhoob to Amos Jacobs. He was averaging about $45 a week, and when his wife, Rose Marie, delivered the first of their three children, he knew he needed help. So, remembering the stagehand’s profession of faith, he began making short prayers to Saint Jude, asking for the saint’s intercession “to show me my way in life.” He prayed for strength to succeed in his profession and promised he would “do something big” in Jude’s name if he managed to gain a measure of economic security.

Before long he traveled to Chicago, where he landed a $50-a-week job doing radio commercials. Shortly thereafter, talent agent Leo Salkin booked him into the 5100 Club on the city’s north side for $75 a week. At that juncture, he again changed his name from Amos Jacobs to Danny Thomas. He soon became a nightclub sensation, earning $500 a week and drawing customers from all over the city to listen to his outrageously funny stories, which he told in different dialects while deftly skewering human vanity and stupidity. And, although he had his audience laughing uproariously, he never resorted to using vulgar language.

His lengthy night shows on Saturdays ran far into the morning hours, and when he was finished, he went to 6 a.m. Mass at St. Clement Church on his way home. It was at the church one day that he noticed a leaflet on a pew. He read the leaflet and learned about a solemn novena to Saint Jude that was then held four times every year at the National Shrine of St. Jude at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on the far southeast side of Chicago.

It was the first he knew that St. Jude’s home was in Chicago. In reading about the Shrine he realized, in the midst of his newly-found professional success, he had completely forgotten his earlier prayers and promises to Saint Jude. While renewing his devotion to the “forgotten apostle,” he planned on somehow showing the church appreciation for his prayers being answered.

Thomas’ life changed dramatically again a few weeks after that. His agent persuaded him to take his comedy routine to New York City, where he was booked into the Club Martinique. From that point on, he moved into the entertainment world’s big time. After USO tours in both Europe and the Pacific, Thomas was engaged to perform at New York’s Roxy Theater at $3,750 a week. He later performed in the most popular nightclubs from coast to coast, broke into movies, playing in “I’ll See You in My Dreams” and “The Jazz Singer” and finally, starting in 1953, he achieved his greatest fame through his starring role in the long-running television comedy series “Make Room for Daddy.”

Thomas’ “big gift” to St. Jude included devotion through the National Shrine of St. Jude and the Claretians in Chicago, and ultimately the world-famous St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

Thomas died in California of a heart attack at age 78 in 1991."

Article: LSU tackle Ciron Black playing for more than just a title in 2009

A story from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Danny Thomas' legacy and offering of thanks to St. Jude Thaddeus (see source link here), authored by Andy Staples of Inside College Football at SI.com.

Tailback Charles Scott didn't decide whether to return for his senior season at LSU until he heard from the behemoth who paves his path to the end zone. "Of course, I was looking at if Ciron was leaving," Scott said in January. "If I'd have my big boy back."

Scott's big boy, LSU left tackle Ciron Black, has started 40 consecutive games at the sport's most physically demanding position in a conference that has produced the past three national champions. If he had chosen to go to the NFL, no one would have blinked. But Black felt he had more to accomplish. He wants to receive his degree in December. He wants a crack at a second national title. He wants to play one more season for Mikey.

Like so much in college football these days, the friendship between Black and Mikey Conger began with a post on an Internet message board.

Hey Michael, I recently saw your story and wanted to have the honor to write in your guest book. My name is Ciron Black. I am the left tackle for the LSU Tigers football team. I'm also number 70 and I saw you wearing that jersey number, that's a great number by the way :). You know some people see us as heroes because of how we play but the truth is people like yourself are the real heroes. I see all the small problems I face are nothing compared to the hardships that you may go through. God has a plan for all of us and for some reason he put it on my heart to write you tonight ... if it is at all possible I would love to talk to you. My number is xxx-xxx-xxxx anytime day or night if you need someone to talk to. Hang in there buddy and just know that anything is possible through Christ.

Your Friend,

Ciron Black

P.S. I would love to write your name on my wrist tape as I get ready to take the field on Jan. 7th for the national championship. Let me know if that is OK.

When Black, then a sophomore, posted that message on Mikey's page at CaringBridge.org in December 2007, 8-year-old Mikey lay in a bed at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. A reaction to a chemotherapy treatment had rendered Mikey paralyzed, nearly blind and unable to speak. Doctors had told Mikey's mother, Laurina, to plan on at least another year at the hospital. Knowing Mikey was an LSU football fan -- his parents named him after Mike the Tiger -- some friends of the family sent messages to several LSU players to keep Mikey in their prayers. Black, the son of two ministers from Tyler, Texas, did more than pray. After reading about Mikey's battle with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia on CaringBridge.org, he posted the above message to Mikey's guestbook.

Laurina remains convinced a desire to watch the BCS title game helped Mikey heal faster than anyone expected. "He knew that the LSU football team was getting ready to play that game," Laurina says. "That was a push. That was a real incentive for him to get well." So, too, was the care package that arrived from Baton Rouge. It contained the game ball Black had received for his role in the SEC championship game win against Tennessee, signed by the entire LSU team. "That's why we play the game," Black said. "For people like him."

Mikey watched the Tigers beat the Buckeyes from his hospital bed. In the third quarter, a Fox camera showed Black's left forearm wrapped in athletic tape with "Mikey" scrawled in marker. Later that month, Mikey went home. Not long after, Mikey met Black face-to-face. Though Mikey was confined to a wheelchair, he never let it dampen his spirits. "He never would let you know that he was hurting," Black says. "He always had a smile on his face."

When Mikey turned 9 last July, his parents took him to LSU to see the national championship crystal ball. Tipped off the Congers were visiting, Black and LSU coach Les Miles greeted the family with a birthday cake. Mikey, on his feet again, ran to Black and hugged him. The 314-pound lineman found himself wiping away tears. A few months later, Mikey and his father came to a game at Tiger Stadium. Black, in his third year as a starter, suddenly felt like a freshman playing his first game. "I don't think I've ever felt that nervous," Black says.

While the Congers celebrated a football season away from hospitals and chemo, the Tigers suffered on the field in a rebuilding season. Despite a wealth of talent, they went 8-5 (3-5 in the SEC). That wore on Black and his teammates, and it had more than a little to do with Black's decision to return. "We have a horrible taste in our mouths," Black said. "Last season, that's not us. That's not how we play. A lot of things went wrong. There's nobody to blame but ourselves."

Now Black returns to a team with a settled quarterback situation -- sophomore Jordan Jefferson has taken ownership of the starting job -- and an established back -- Scott ran for 1,174 yards and 18 touchdowns in 2008 -- taking handoffs. John Chavis, who spent the past 14 years coordinating Tennessee's defense, has come to Baton Rouge to restore the Tigers' roar on that side of the ball.

Mikey, meanwhile, should get plenty of chances to watch Black play this season. Earlier this month, he visited St. Jude and his doctor declared his disease remains in remission. "I'm not done yet," Mikey boasted to his mother's delight. This fall, Mikey, who just turned 10, will enter third grade. Black, meanwhile, will continue to refine his game. If Black helps bring LSU another national title, he'd happily dedicate it to the boy who inspires him every day. "I love him," Black says. "I'll be friends with him until the day I die."

Article: Danny Thomas Puts His Life and Work on Paper

When I started this blog, one of the first inspirations I drew upon was the story of Danny Thomas, who perhaps is considered the most recognized American devotee of St. Jude (mainly during the last half of the 20th century). This week, I would to follow-up two previous posts on Danny Thomas (here, and here) with another article on the entertainer and devotee (source link here).

Since its inception, this blog has drawn visitors and readers from more than 30 countries. My hope is to find and draw attention to the inspiration of and work by devotees of St. Jude from around the world, such as The School of St. Jude founded by Gemma Sisia (here).

"Blessed is he who knows why he was born."

Danny Thomas, 77 years and 1 day old, is sitting on a sofa at his midtown hotel comparing the comedians of today with the ones of his generation. "Most of the new comics have about six or seven great minutes," Mr. Thomas says. "After that, they have to garbage it up to be out there for maybe 20 minutes. In our day, you did an hour."

He raises his left hand to his mouth, and gray smoke from the long cigar that is clenched between his fingers drifts over his not-quite-as-gray hair. He reaches up to adjust the black-rimmed eyeglasses that somewhat disguise his trademark large hook nose, a nose that three movie producers -- Jack Warner, Louis B. Mayer and Harry Cohn -- could not persuade him to change.

"The new comics' subject matter is not deep enough," Mr. Thomas continues. "They don't get to the core of the people. There's really no substance, no universality to what they're doing. There's no artistry there." He takes another puff. "They have one big problem. They have to start on top. They go on the talk shows or to the big comedy clubs and the first time out they must be scared to death. They have no place to stink. We did. Oh, did we stink!" An Autobiography

The tale of the days in which he stank, as well as the years in which he soared, is told in in Mr. Thomas's autobiography, "Make Room for Danny," which he wrote with Bill Davidson and which is being published by G. P. Putnam's Sons.

It is the story of Muzyad Yakhoob (his name was later changed to Amos Jacobs, and his friends still call him Jake), the son of Lebanese immigrants who was born in Deerfield, Mich., on Jan. 6, 1914, and grew up with his eight brothers and one sister largely in Toledo, Ohio. It is the story of a high-school dropout who went into show business with the dream of becoming a character actor. (It is a dream he still pursues; his daughter Marlo Thomas is working on a movie for the two of them to do together.) He was a character actor on radio, although one of his first radio jobs was making the sound of horses' hooves on a "Lone Ranger" show by beating his chest with two toilet plungers.

But he had a yen for comedy and after rough beginnings became a night-club star, with the encouragement and assistance of Abe Lastfogel, then the head of the William Morris Agency. He took the name Danny Thomas, combining the first names of two of his brothers, at the 5100 Club in Chicago in 1940.

Then came movies, followed by major success on television in the situation comedy "Make Room for Daddy," later known as "The Danny Thomas Show," which ran from 1953 to 1964 and is still seen in reruns. And he became a successful television producer, first with Sheldon Leonard and then with Aaron Spelling, creating such shows as "The Real McCoys," "The Andy Griffith Show," "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and "The Mod Squad." No One-Liners

But through it all, he remained a comedian -- a special kind of comedian. Danny Thomas does not deliver one-liners. "My people are inherently storytellers," he explains. "When I was a kid, the entertainment was somebody from the old country or a big city who came and visited and told tales of where they came from. And my mother was very good at it. She could not read or write in any language, yet she would see silent movies and make up her own scenarios."

Of his comic tales, the one that is his signature is known as the Jack Story:

There's this traveling salesman who gets stuck one night on a lonely country road with a flat tire and no jack. So he starts walking toward a service station about a mile away, and as he walks, he talks to himself. "How much can he charge me for renting a jack?" he thinks. "One dollar, maybe two. But it's the middle of the night, so maybe there's an after-hours fee. Probably another five dollars. If he's anything like my brother-in-law, he'll figure I got no place else to go for the jack, so he's cornered the market and has me at his mercy. Ten dollars more."

He goes on walking and thinking, and the price and the anger keep rising. Finally, he gets to the service station and is greeted cheerfully by the owner: "What can I do for you, sir?" But the salesman will have none of it. "You got the nerve to talk to me, you robber," he says. "You can take your stinkin' jack and..."

Mr. Thomas laughs. "The story has the fundamentals of real comedy," he says. "Show me a man or a woman in trouble, and I'll show you a funny man or woman. People can relate to it. They have all been in situations where they suffered anticipation and slow burn, and those are two great commodities in comedy." A Vow Fulfilled

Through the years Mr. Thomas has been known for his deep religious faith. (Bob Hope's one-liner on the subject is that his friend Danny is so religious the highway patrol stops him for having stained-glass windows in his car.) The classic tale about Mr. Thomas is that early in his career, when things were not going well and after his wife, the former Rose Marie Cassaniti, had urged him to leave show business, he prayed to St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of the hopeless, impossible and difficult cases, asking the saint to set him on the right path. He vowed that if the saint did so he would build him a shrine. To this day, Mr. Thomas says, he believes in the saint, and still has conversations with him.

"After that, everything happened to me so quickly that it had to be more than a coincidence," he says. "I never prayed for fame and fortune. I wasn't trying to do anything but make a living. I was hoping that the radio producers would have more faith in my ability to play character roles. All I wanted was to get a house in the country, buy a station wagon, raise my kids."

The shrine he built, with the help of many other people, turned out to be the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. And, he says, there is no doubt in his mind that the hospital is his most important accomplishment.

"There's no question of it," he says proudly. "That's my epitaph. It's right on the cornerstone: Danny Thomas, founder."

He still spends much of his time raising money for the hospital. "We raised $92 million last year," he says, "and spent only 22 cents on the dollar to raise it."

It is, he is convinced, the reason he was born. A while back, he had a family coat of arms designed, with a family motto. "The motto is 'Blessed is he who knows why he was born,'" he says. "And I am blessed."

"I never prayed for fame and fortune," said Danny Thomas during an interview. "I wasn't trying to do anything but make a living."

Danny's Promise

As a follow-on to last Sunday's post, the following is taken from the website of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.A.), entitled Danny's Promise. This week, I'd like to continue exploring Danny Thomas' prayers to St. Jude and, ultimately, his pledge to this saint. Click here to read the original information.

"More than 70 years ago, Danny Thomas, then a struggling young entertainer with a baby on the way, visited a Detroit church and was so moved during the Mass, he placed his last $7 in the collection box. When he realized what he’d done, Danny Thomas prayed for a way to pay the looming hospital bills. The next day, he was offered a small part that would pay 10 times the amount he’d given to the church. Danny Thomas had experienced the power of prayer.

Two years later, Danny Thomas had achieved moderate acting success in Detroit, but he was struggling to take his career to the next level. Once again, he turned to the church. Praying to St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of hopeless causes, Danny Thomas asked the saint to “help me find my way in life, and I will build you a shrine.”

His career took a turn for the better, and soon he moved his family to Chicago to pursue career offers. A few years later, at another turning point in his life, Danny Thomas visited a church and remembered his pledge to St. Jude. Again he prayed to St. Jude and repeated his pledge to build a shrine to the saint if he would show him the way.

In the years that followed, Danny Thomas’ career flourished through films and television, and he became an internationally known entertainer. He remembered his pledge to build a shrine to St. Jude.

In the early 1950s, Danny Thomas began discussing with friends what concrete form his vow might take. Gradually, the idea of a children’s hospital, possibly in Memphis, Tenn., took shape. In 1955, Danny Thomas and a group of Memphis businessmen who had agreed to help support his dream seized on the idea of creating a unique research hospital devoted to curing catastrophic diseases in children. More than just a treatment facility, this would be a research center for the children of the world.

Danny Thomas started raising money for his vision of St. Jude in the early 1950s. By 1955, the local business leaders who had joined his cause began area fundraising efforts, supplementing Danny Thomas’ benefit shows that brought scores of major entertainment stars to Memphis. Often accompanied by his wife, Rose Marie, Danny Thomas crisscrossed the United States by car talking about his dream and raising funds at meetings and benefits. The pace was so hectic that Danny Thomas and his wife once visited 28 cities in 32 days. Although Danny Thomas and his friends raised the money to build the hospital, they now faced the daunting task of funding its annual operation.

To solve this problem, Danny Thomas turned to his fellow Americans of Arabic-speaking heritage. Believing deeply that these Americans should, as a group, thank the United States for the gifts of freedom given their parents, Danny Thomas also felt the support of St. Jude would be a noble way of honoring his immigrant forefathers who had come to America.

Danny Thomas’ request struck a responsive chord. In 1957, 100 representatives of the Arab-American community met in Chicago to form ALSAC® with a sole purpose of raising funds for the support of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Since that time, with national headquarters in Memphis and regional offices throughout the United States, ALSAC has assumed full responsibility for all the hospital’s fundraising efforts, raising hundreds of millions annually through benefits and solicitation drives among Americans of all ethnic, religious and racial backgrounds. Today, ALSAC is the nation’s second largest health-care charity and is supported by the efforts of more than 1 million volunteers nationwide.

Through striking improvements in the care of pediatric leukemias and numerous forms of solid tumors, St. Jude – which now has a daily operating cost of nearly $1.3 million – has brought about improved health care for children all over the world.

From a promise of “Help me find my way in life, and I will build you a shrine” to the fulfillment of his dream, Danny Thomas lived to see his little hospital become an international beacon of hope for the catastrophically ill children of the world. The founder of St. Jude and ALSAC died on February 6, 1991, just two days after joining patients, parents and employees to celebrate the hospital’s 29th anniversary. He was laid to rest in a family crypt at the Danny Thomas/ALSAC Pavilion on the grounds of the hospital. On July 12, 2000, his wife, Rose Marie, passed away and now lies with her beloved husband in the hospital’s Memorial Garden. Today, their children, Marlo, Terre and Tony, carry on their parents’ work and remain a driving force in fulfilling their father’s mission. Danny Thomas is gone, but his dream lives on."

Again, the following is taken from the hospital's website. Memorable Moments chronicles some of the important milestones and achievements throughout its history, from 1957 when the St. Jude story began, to present day in 2008; click here.