St. Mel Founder Has Seen 4 Decades of Growth

In 1955, Msgr. Michael J. O’Connor was assigned the task of building a new Catholic parish in the West Valley.

Under his direction, St. Mel church--named after St. Patrick’s nephew and an established parish in Chicago--was built on the site of a walnut grove near Ventura Boulevard and De Soto Avenue in Woodland Hills. The Ventura Freeway did not yet reach the West Valley--it was completed in 1962--and there were relatively few people living in the area.

“At the founding of St. Mel’s, we had 415 families. . . . We now have 5,000 families,” O’Connor said. “I used to say, ‘Someday it will be downtown,’ and it is today, because of the growth of [Woodland Hills].”

The four acres O’Connor initially purchased have increased to seven today. In the four decades since its founding, the parish holdings have grown to include a school for 620 students from kindergarten to eighth grade, a convent, a rectory, an auditorium, a computer lab, a 16,000-book library and a parish center. Plans are in the works for a preschool and a new junior high school facility.

“I can never praise enough the friendly, wonderful people of Woodland Hills. . . . I was only a worker,” said O’Connor, who at 87 looks at least 20 years younger.

Born to a rancher in County Kerry, Ireland, O’Connor came to the United States in 1934, following his ordination into the priesthood. He served for 14 years at various parishes throughout Los Angeles before he was assigned as the founding pastor of the yet-to-be-built St. Mel parish.

“He was certainly one of the pioneer pastors of the San Fernando Valley. He helped to build the Catholic community and put St. Mel’s on the map in the sense that he made it a parish that was alive and vital by taking the best talents of his people and helped them use them to feel proud of being part of the church,” said Msgr. Gerald E. Wilkerson, episcopal vicar for the San Fernando pastoral region of the Los Angeles Archdiocese.

O’Connor and a brother, Tom, are the only survivors among 11 siblings, who included three priests and a nun. O’Connor last visited Ireland when he retired in 1985.

He continues to live in the rectory he built at St. Mel.