1899 – 1954 (May 12)
James Patrick Ambrose, son of James Ambrose and Helen Anderson, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on June 10, 1899, and received baptism at St. John the Baptist Parish in Manayunk. He attended Augustinian Academy as a postulant beginning in 1921, and entered the novitiate of Our Mother of Good Counsel, New Hamburg, New York, on August 15, 1925. He made his simple profession on August 16, 1926, and was professed solemnly on the same date in 1929 at Villanova. On June 14, 1932, he was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Emmett Walsh of Charleston in the Immaculate Conception Shrine in Washington, DC.
After ordination, Father Ambrose first served temporarily at Our Mother of Consolation Parish, Chestnut Hill, Pa. In 1933, he was assigned to Grosse Point, Michigan, and in 1937 to Saint Patrick Parish in Cambridge, N.Y. The following year he was transferred to Immaculate Conception Parish in Hoosick Falls, and remained there until 1950 when he was assigned to Our Lady of Good Counsel on Staten Island, N.Y. In 1951 he was assigned to Saint John’s Parish in Schaghticoke, N.Y..
In May, 1954, Father Ambrose retired to the Monastery at Villanova, Pa. because of poor health. He died in Bryn Mawr Hospital on May 12, 1954, at the age of 55 of complications from rheumatic heart disease. Prior Provincial Joseph Dougherty, O.S.A. celebrated his Requiem Mass on May 17, at which Father Robert Regan, O.S.A. preached. Father Ambrose is buried in the Community Cemetery at Villanova.
