Queen of Martyrs Welcomes Former Br. Rice Dean As New Principal

CHICAGO (MOUNT GREENWOOD)— Jacob Mathius — better known as Doc — is a brave man. It’s not everyone who can jump in as a new school principal in the middle of a pandemic, but after 43 years at Brother Rice High School, Doc is trading in big guys for little squirts at Queen of Martyrs School on the Evergreen Park.-Mount Greenwood border.

“Becoming a principal in the age of COVID-19 probably wasn’t the best idea I ever had,” Doc laughed. “I never aspired to be a principal of an elementary school when my skill level was secondary school. These are two things I’d never thought I’d do. I wish I could win the lotto like this.”

On Aug. 24, Doc welcomed Queen of Martyrs students who had not been in their school building since March, when the governor ordered all private and public schools in Illinois closed to slow the spread of coronavirus. Knowing he would not be returning to Brother Rice in the fall, the 69-year-old Doc was not yet ready to retire. He began shaking the Brother Rice alumni tree.

“I have over 700 Facebook friends, all essentially are Brother Rice alumni,” Doc said. “I reached out over social media. I was looking for something new at the worst possible time.”

When a former student told Doc about an opening for a principal at Queen of Martyrs to replace the outgoing Kathleen Tomaszewski, he jumped at the chance.

“A lot of my ex-Brother Rice students are Queen of Martyrs dads,” Doc said.

He says he’s comfortable with the plan put into place by the Archdiocese of Chicago for a safe return to school, despite the uptick of reported coronavirus cases in Illinois.

“The archdiocese has done a good job doing its homework. They’ve talked to the epidemiologists and the experts,” Doc said. “The children are very good about wearing their face masks. It’s not so easy to keep them from going at each other. They’re drawn to each other like magnets. It’s great having children back in the building.”

A proud South Side native Doc graduated from Bogan High School. His first job was a bagger at Steinberg Baum discount store on 63rd Avenue and Springfield, that sold pretty much everything.

“You won’t believe that amount of cigarettes that they sold,” Doc said.

In the fall of 1977, Doc joined the faculty at Brother Rice, where he taught biology for 21 years. He also served as the athletic trainer for the football team. In 1998, he was appointed assistant principal and school dean of Brother Rice.

“I’m an affable and gregarious guy,” he said. “When I showed anger it was act and just to get [students’] attention.”

He picked up the nickname "Doc" in college, because of his knack for dissecting cadavers for science classes at University of Illinois at Chicago. The nickname followed him into the Navy Reserve where he was a corpsman. When he started wrapping Crusaders' ankles before games, some of his college buddies would show up to help him.

"They would all call me 'doc,' then the football players started calling me doc," he said.

One of Doc's goals for Queen of Martyrs is to improve the school’s financial footing. With the pandemic still in full swing, the parish won’t be holding its annual carnival the year, which is a major fundraiser for the school.

Doc also wants to increase enrollment. The current student population stands at 196, a decrease from last year. Last year at this time, Queen of Martyrs counted 230 students. Although the school picked up a few new students this year, Queen of Martyrs has lost 30 preschoolers, whose parents have opted to keep their children home during the pandemic.

“Enrollment isn’t where we’d like it. To get school on steady footing, we need more students,,” Doc said. “Right now the smaller enrollment is a plus. The smaller number of kids all play a role in allowing the model the archdiocese put together to work."

People ask him if he’s going to steer Queen of Martyrs students over to Brother Rice.

“I'm a Queen of Martyrs guy," Doc said. "My job is to help prepare young boys and girls for high school and to help get them into the high school they want to go to, whether that be Brother Rice, Marist, McAuley or St. Rita.”

For now, he’s enjoying the joyous and fresh voices of his elementary students.

“I feel truly blessed to be at Queen of Martyrs.”