A Love of Learning Results in a Transformational Bequest to the Geisel Library
Wilfrid Paradis, Class of 1943, was a Chemistry major at Saint Anselm, and
was active in Red Key and the Chess Club. Graduating in the midst of World
War II, he joined the Army as a combat medic. He was awarded the Silver
Star for gallantry in action, but his experience in the war diverted him
from medicine as a career, and he went to seminary and was ordained a
priest in 1949. Msgr. Paradis earned multiple doctoral degrees, as well as
an honorary doctorate from his alma mater in 1979, and became a leading
expert in Church matters, including a very significant role during and
after Vatican II.
Msgr. Paradis was a supporter of and a frequent visitor to the Geisel
Library, especially the college archives, where he did significant work on
his groundbreaking history of the Diocese of Manchester, Upon this Granite (1998).
At his death in 2013, Msgr. Paradis left
his personal collections, and the balance of his estate, to Saint Anselm
College, for the use of the Geisel Library. In his honor and memory, we
have named the newly renovated college archives
The Msgr. Wilfrid H. Paradis Archives & Special Collections.