Longest-tenured priest defies his out-of-date headstone

There's a little problem with Rev. Boleslaus Watroba's headstone at St. Mary's Cemetery in Schenectady: It reads, "1910-19--."

"They've already printed the figures, and they're deeply engraved!" Father Watroba chortled last week, seated in his office chair at Immaculate Conception rectory in Watervliet.

The 95-year-old priest recently celebrated his 70th jubilee of ordination, making him the longest-tenured priest in the Albany Diocese.

He shrugged off his "grave dilemma" with, "That's not my concern," joking that he's more concerned with fellow retirees Revs. Walter Baniak and Anthony DeFranco nipping at his heels to beat his priesthood record: "Once in a while, they step on my foot!"

After a king

A native of Schenectady, Father Watroba was born to first-generation Polish immigrants Martin and Ann Watroba at a time when the Electric City was experiencing a massive influx of immigrants from Europe.

His parents named him "Boleslaus" in recognition of five Polish kings, but he was baptized "Joseph" by an associate pastor who insisted, "There's no St. Boleslaus," and named him after a pastor of St. Mary's Church.

Having come into the world just two years before the famed Proctor's Theatre in Schenectady opened, Father Watroba recalled going there as a child to see vaudeville shows and "A-number-one movies, especially the cowboy pictures!"

He had the free time because Schenectady High School was then so overcrowded that each grade attended for half-days to accommodate them all.

Close to Church

The young boy spent much of his time serving Mass. Beginner altar boys wore white cassocks then, while more experienced ones graduated to red and then black cassocks. Father Watroba said it was every altar boy's dream to reach the senior level and "get up there by the altar."

Rev. Francis Ren, pastor of St. Mary's during his childhood, encouraged young parishioners to consider religious life. Father Watroba's parents served as the parish's sexton and dishwasher, so the family and pastor were also close.

Father Watroba chuckled as he remembered being sent on errands to pick up a half-dozen Roman collars from a Jewish haberdashery down the street.

Called to serve

Father Watroba's older brother, Julian, attended a seminary prep school in New Jersey for missionary work, further cementing his younger brother's idea that priesthood might be a good fit.

The Watrobas also lived close to Union College and General Electric, and Father Watroba remembers filling out forms on career hopes in high school and writing, "I want to be a priest; if I can't, I want to be an electrical engineer."

In the 1920s, Ss. Cyril and Methodius Seminary in Orchard Lake, Michigan, cost $350 a year. Father Watroba's mother told him calmly, "You go. We'll find a way to get you through."

First assignment

He did make it through there and St. Bernard's Institute in Rochester, and was ordained in 1935.

His first assignment was St. Adalbert's parish in Schenectady, a place he delicately called "kind of rugged for assistants" at that time.

"Stick it out for a year, and you can ask for a change," priest friends advised the newcomer. But Father Watroba got along so well with the pastor and parishioners that he ended up spending nine years there.

Accounting

In those days, priests received little education on how to handle financial affairs, so Father Watroba got a crash course from the pastor on everything from writing checks to rolling up pennies.

"When do you find pennies in the collection nowadays?" he remarked.

His talent for math landed him the task of writing a three-year financial report on the parish. As a result, he said, "the pastor treated me like a son."

Pastor Watroba

When he got his own pastorate in 1944, there was much work to do at his new home: Immaculate Conception parish in Watervliet.

"We had a wooden church. Upstairs was the school, and it was falling apart," he reported. "We had nine sisters to be housed in a one-story building; their beds were just screened off. The cemetery was overgrown."

Even though World War II was still affecting people's budgets, Father Watroba managed to get parishioners to save enough for a new church. He recalled taking a ride with then-Auxiliary Bishop William Scully to check out the architecture of other churches in the area. St. Jude's Church in Wynantskill provided the inspiration for the final design.

Builder

Father Watroba said that Bishop Edmund Gibbons looked at the plans for the building and declared, "I like this. This is a very 'churchy' church!"

By 1956, both the church and school were completed. Four years later, when Bishop Scully was at Immaculate Conception to confirm some teenagers, he saw the poor condition of the convent and asked, "Can you do anything about that?"

"Yes, if you loan me $100,000," the priest shot back.

"I'll see to it," said the bishop.

Those three projects were among the proudest moments of Father Watroba's ministry. He became so bonded to Immaculate Conception parish that he never had any desire to leave, even when other assignments were offered to him.

Emotional times

During his decades at the parish, Father Watroba lost his parents and brother, who was also a priest. Since he "wasn't tied to anybody," he said, he dedicated a lot of time to visiting shut-ins and parishioners in hospitals and nursing homes.

"When you're a priest alone, you never get bored," he observed. "You just didn't sit and wait for business to come to you!"

He often bumped into Rev. Howard Hubbard, a young priest whose sister lived nearby. He remembered scolding the future bishop for playing ball with his nephews and letting the ball hit the side of the church.

Retired? Hardly!

Father Watroba "stretched out" his pastorate until 1986, two years beyond the mandatory retirement age for priests.

He was called out of retirement three times: first to fill in for his ailing successor, Rev. Charles Baniak; then to serve the parish when Father Baniak passed away; and, finally, to fill in for Rev. Paul Antos when that pastor was also serving Sacred Heart parish in Lake George.

"They kept me here because I knew what was in that file box," Father Watroba joked, gesturing at an old file cabinet filled with baptismal and marriage records.

Changes in town

Talking about the more recent "big change" in Watervliet sobered his mood. He was heartbroken when all the parishes of Watervliet and Green Island merged this year, and one new parish called Immaculate Heart of Mary (using three churches as "worship sites") would serve the cities instead.

Immaculate Conception is among three of the churches that will be used for liturgies until June 2006 and then close (for more on the change, go to www.evangelist.org and search for "One parish to replace six").

Father Watroba sees his church, school and convent as children. "If you were a mother, and gave birth to triplets and brought them up, and then somebody tells you, 'We've got to take them away,...'" he blinked back tears. "But I had my time, and I loved it -- and the people are showing their gratitude."

Soldiering on

The priest was referring to the two meals a day delivered to him by parishioners, the caretakers who have made it possible for him to keep living at the rectory and the people who attend the daily Masses he celebrates.

"I chose not to leave them, and they chose not to leave me," he said of his parishioners -- adding wryly that if his mother saw the number of female parishioners who hug him when they visit, she would tell them, "What are you doing? He's a priest!"

Although Father Watroba uses a walker after having a mini-stroke, he noted that he has "quite a bit of strength and no pain." In fact, he's still responsible for offering Masses in memory of deceased parishioners and calls the families to let them know the date for each liturgy.

He also hears confessions and even blesses parishioners' new cars. "Occasion shows up," he remarked. "I try to keep up with whatever I can do."

Time to pray

In his spare time, Father Watroba reads the newspaper and prays. In retirement, he explained, "you've got a lot of time for prayer -- even at night, when you can't sleep."

He mused on his eventual passing: "You wonder when your turn comes; you are not eternal." He often pictures his fellow priests singing "You Are a Priest Forever" at his funeral.

On the other hand, he added, "My doctor tells me, 'Your blood pressure is better than mine!'"

Apparently, the engraving on that headstone will have to wait a while longer.

(9/22/05) [[In-content Ad]]