“I Will Be With You When You Die”

A Family’s Memory of Fr. Solanus

Some stories about Fr. Solanus Casey come from his notebooks, from hospital records or from the recollections of the friars who knew him. Others are quieter — passed down at a kitchen table, remembered by a niece or nephew who heard it firsthand from someone who was there. This is one of those stories, shared with us by Daisy, who heard it from her aunt, Elizabeth, before she passed away.

Dr. Howard Angeline

Elizabeth’s husband — Daisy’s uncle — was Dr. Howard Angeline, who served as Chief of Staff at Mt. Carmel Hospital in Detroit. He and Elizabeth made their home in Novi, Michigan, and Dr. Angeline practiced medicine for decades before he died on August 18, 1971, at the age of 82.

Like many Detroiters of his era, Dr. Angeline crossed paths with Fr. Solanus — though not, at first, on the friendliest terms.

A Frustrated Physician

Making his rounds at the hospital one day, Dr. Angeline began hearing something odd from his patients: several of them said that Fr. Solanus had visited and told them they didn’t need to take their medication.

For a physician responsible for his patients’ care, this was more than a little unsettling. So the next time their paths crossed at the hospital, Dr. Angeline pulled Fr. Solanus aside.

“I don’t come into your parish and tell your parishioners what to do,” he said, “so I don’t appreciate you coming into the hospital and telling my patients they don’t need to take their medications.”

Fr. Solanus didn’t argue. He simply placed his hand on Dr. Angeline’s shoulder and said:

“I will be with you when you die.”

It was, as Dr. Angeline later told his wife, a strange thing to say — not quite an apology, not quite an answer. He couldn’t make sense of it. But he never forgot it, and he told Elizabeth the story not long after it happened.

Years Later

Decades passed. Dr. Angeline retired, and eventually, as his life drew to a close, Elizabeth — a nurse by training — cared for him at home.

In his final days, he began asking her the same question, again and again: “Who is that man standing at the end of the bed?”

Elizabeth looked, but saw no one there. Still, he kept asking. Finally, she asked him gently, “Well, what does he look like?”

Dr. Angeline answered: “He’s an old man, with a long white beard, and he’s wearing a robe.”

Not long after, he died.

Virginia never doubted who her husband had seen. The description — the old man, the long white beard, the plain robe — matched no one she knew, except the friar who had once put a hand on her husband’s shoulder and made him a promise he never understood, until the very end. Fr. Solanus had kept his word.

This story was shared with the Cause for Canonization by Daisy, who heard it from her aunt, Elizabeth, wife of Dr. Angeline. It is shared here with the family’s permission, although the names have been altered to protect the anonymity of the family, as one more thread in the tapestry of memory that continues to surround the life of Fr. Solanus Casey.