Photo: Lee Pellegrini

In Memoriam: M. George Roper

A funeral Mass was celebrated on August 18 at St. Gregory’s Church in Dorchester for M. George Roper, a retired carpenter for Boston College whose work over four decades at the Heights often reflected, and expressed, his deep and abiding Christian faith. He was 88.

A native of Ballyshannon in the northwest of Ireland, Mr. Roper joined the carpentry staff in 1960 and practiced his artistry with wood throughout the University in a variety of settings. He fashioned large crosses used at Masses on O’Neill Plaza and at Conte Forum; made a desk set for University President William P. Leahy, S.J., and a commemorative plaque presented to University Chancellor J. Donald Monan, S.J., upon his retirement as president; built podiums used at Commencement as well as the stand used to hold honorary degrees; and more than once was called to repair the ceremonial University mace. He also constructed elaborate stage sets for plays performed on Bapst Lawn and at the old McHugh Forum on the occasion of the University Centennial in 1963.

“Wood is a beautiful thing,” he said, reflecting on his vocation in a 1999 interview with Boston College Chronicle. “It’s something that lives.”

One of his most heartfelt endeavors came from the heart, rather than a work order. In 1998, while taking part in a project to replace the original floor in St. Mary’s Chapel—built in 1917—he saved a five-foot section of the old oaken floorboard between the sacristy and altar. From it, he carved a handsome crucifix that now hangs prominently in the chapel foyer.

“A lot of old Jesuits walked on this,” Mr. Roper said of the oak floor. “Hundreds, maybe thousands.”

He added a personal touch to the crucifix: the inscription “INRI,” an abbreviation of the Latin for “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews”—one of the earliest carvings he did, as a boy of 10.

“It was a piece of sycamore, a piece of firewood I whittled with a knife,” he recalled. “I carried it for years.”

 Mr. Roper started out as a carpenter while in Ballyshannon, where he attended trade school and worked as a cabinetmaker before moving to the United States in 1956. His first encounter with BC was not work-related, however: He came to campus for Irish ceili dances held regularly in Campion Hall.

Whether at BC or at home, Mr. Roper never stopped being a carpenter. In his spare time, he carved wooden miniatures, such as scale models of chairs or horse-drawn carts. But crucifixes were his specialty, and he often made them as gifts: He fashioned one for his cousin, a former sign painter at a chocolate plant in Dorchester Mill, using wood from a demolished building at the site; for his son Sean, a park ranger, Mr. Roper carved a crucifix from a Wyoming lodgepole pine.

“It gives you a good feeling when you make one of them,” he said. “When I see a nice piece of wood with a beautiful grain, I say, ‘That would make a marvelous crucifix.’”

Mr. Roper learned another skill that proved to be literally life-saving. During the late 1980s, he enrolled in a University-sponsored cardiopulmonary resuscitation course. One night, while at a social event, a friend of his suffered a cardiac arrest, but Mr. Roper was able to help restore his vital signs and stabilize his conditions until an ambulance arrived.

“I’ve always felt if there was something you could do to help another person, you should do it,” he told Boston College Biweekly. “I didn’t realize l’d ever use the skills, but you never know when you’ll find yourself in that situation.”

As part of its Ignatian Year celebration in 1991, the University honored Mr. Roper and 10 other BC faculty, staff, students, and alumni as Companions of Justice, whose conduct and contributions “both exemplify and enrich our cherished Ignatian legacy,” said Fr. Monan at the award event. In addition to his “expert craftsmanship,” Mr. Roper was recognized as a man whose “Christian ideals and deep belief in justice shine in his life and work, a close companion of Jesus who walks in the footsteps of the Carpenter of Nazareth.”

Mr. Roper is survived by his children, Ann, George, Sean, and Michael—all of whom graduated from Boston College—and nine grandchildren. He was predeceased by his wife, Barbara, to whom he was married for almost 55 years; donations may be made in her memory to the Alzheimer’s Association, 4780 Pleasant Street, Watertown, Mass. 02472.

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