Parish's future taking shape from its storied past

People are telling stories at St. Patrick's Church in St. Johnsville.

"I said up front that I was going to spend a whole year just getting to know [parishioners]," said Sister Johanne McCarthy, CSJ, who has been parish life director at the Montgomery County parish for a little under that time.

She wanted to "spend a whole year just getting to know them -- to be there, be present, be available and listen."

Listen here

So parishioners told her their stories: about the festivals in the back churchyard...about the little stained-glass window above the altar, boarded up and blocked during renovations...how the specialty stores off Center Street used to look.

Those stories caused the historically minded Sister Johanne to start gathering pictures, articles and old parish records in an effort to create a history of the parish on a decidedly modern medium: the internet.

"I want to see how we got here, know the people who make things happen and hear their stories," she said.

'Cupid's dart'

One of her prized exhibits is a marriage record kept by the parish's first pastor, Rev. Matthew K. Mearns. On its first page, a spidery hand bemoaned the lack of marriages in the new parish -- until 1888, that is, when he wrote: "The spell is broken, the die is cast. Cupid's dart got here at last. Yours without a struggle."

Delving into various archives, Sister Johanne found interesting tidbits. For example, the church had been fond of second collections, and the weekly collection in the first year amounted to $13. She also found old postcards depicting the parish in back of an unpaved, dirt road.

Helpful parishioners dropped off a bagful of old pictures of the turn-of-the-century church interior, former parishioners and towheaded, grinning elementary-schoolers from the mid-1920s on their First Communion day.

Let me tell you

Sister Johanne doesn't need to go far to find stories. In the parish office one recent morning sat George and Donna Swartz, counting the Sunday collection.

Mr. Swartz, a Red Sox fan in a "Proud to be Irish" hat, recounted how parishioners still remember one particularly beloved priest, Father William Schoofs, pastor from 1976 to 1981. "We all loved him," Mrs. Swartz said to Sister Johanne. "He was a good man. You would have liked him."

Alan Lattrell stopped by to drop off a flyer advertising a Christian music coffeehouse at the local Reformed church before going on to the nursing home to bring Eucharist to residents there. Ecumenical activities are on the rise; during the summertime, local churches share a summer Bible school and throw dinners for the community.

On-line history

Sister Johanne writes about her ongoing historical discoveries in the parish bulletin, which is posted on the St. Patrick's website.

She said that the site is used regularly by parishioners to pray for sick friends, check Mass times, email the parish office, ask for information, learn who's on parish committees, look at parish photos and discover other tidbits of important information.

She looks forward to using the website to tell the story of the parish and the people who kept it lively when her discoveries are done.

"If you don't know their stories, you never get to know people. I just hope that we are creating a history here," she said.

Host of site

The St. Patrick's website is hosted on a St. Johnsville history page run by Joyce Berry, who offers her web-design and web-hosting skills to churches and organizations in the area.

She serves as unofficial biographer, historian and webmaster for St. Patrick's, as well as keeping tabs on local-interest topics, such as Dutch barns, genealogy and musings on events from the Revolutionary War.

She likes to "keep the design simple" to convey information to readers and provides her services free to St. Johnsville churches as long as they register their own domain names.

(The St. Patrick's website is http://stpatricksny.com. The Three Rivers historical site is http://www.threerivershms.com.)

(10/21/04)