Stefan Furdek was the paster of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, was born in 1855 at Trstena, Slovakia. Bishop Gilmore of the Cleveland Diocese requested the young seminarian come to Cleveland, and he quickly became a leader of Cleveland’s Slovak community through his death in 1915. In addition, Furdek organized the First Catholic Slovak Union and the First Slovak Ladies Union in 1889. He also wrote prolifically, including poetry and prose, as well as a series of readers for use in Slovakia