Echoes: A Century Later, Mysteries Remain about WWI Memorial Door

Author: Margaret Fosmoe ’85  

Published: Spring 2024

Memorial Day Mass held outside of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart's World War I Memorial Door, view from above, May 30, 1941.
A field Mass at the doorway in May 1941. University of Notre Dame Archives

One century ago on Memorial Day — Friday, May 30, 1924 — the campus community gathered to dedicate a permanent landmark honoring former Notre Dame students who had died in or as a result of the Great War.

The armistice had been signed and the guns silenced more than five years earlier.

Today the east entrance of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart — the familiar phrase “God, Country, Notre Dame” carved into the stone above the oaken double doors — is known as the World War I Memorial Door. At the time, it was often called the “Soldiers Memorial Transept Porch” or simply the “Memorial Porch.”

To read the article in its entirety please visit Notre Dame Magazine.

Art and Historydigest249God Country Notre DameHonoring Our MilitaryUniversity of Notre Dame

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