Background
John Francis Sheblessy was born in 1873 in Chicago, Illinois, United States.
John Francis Sheblessy was born in 1873 in Chicago, Illinois, United States.
He was educated in Chicago, completed a course of technical study at Armour Institute.
In 1895 Mr. Sheblessy entered the office of William B. Jenny where he acquired training, experience, and skill in draftsmanship, and later was employed by Holabird & Root and the late Henry Ives Cobb. From Chicago he moved to Louisville, Ky., in 1900, and having secured a position in the MacDonald Brothers office, continued work there seven years. Among the buildings he helped design was the Jewish Synagogue (1905), and the Walnut Street Baptist Church (1907) both in Louisville, also the County Court House at Cartersville, Ga.
In 1908 Mr. Sheblessy opened an office for practice in Cincinnati, and in the ensuing years won a reputation as a specialist in designing Roman Catholic churches and institutional buildings. His most important works in that field were St. Elizabeths School in Norwood, Ohio (1915), Church of the Holy Family, and St. Bonaventura's School and Monastery in Cincinnati, and the Sacred Heart School, Bellevue, Ky. In addition he re-modeled a number of buildings: St. Clare s Convent in Hartwell, Ohio: St. Aloysius' Academy, Covington.