Want something done? Call Maureen Noonan

Kay McCarty recently took to calling her friend, Maureen Noonan, "Mrs. St. Peter's."

"I wanted to choke her!" Ms. Noonan protested, red-faced. "That's embarrassing!"

But the lifelong member of St. Peter's Church in Troy admits she is involved in just about every parish ministry: She's a Eucharistic minister, sings in the choir, works at Bingo, cleans the church, helps at dinners and special events, and represents St. Peter's on the Diocesan Planning Committee and the Rensselaer County deanery.

Busy schedule

In addition to her work at St. Peters, Ms. Noonan is or has been involved with the Seton Auxiliary, Troy Rehabilitation and Improvement Program (TRIP), Troy Area United Teachers, Rensselaer County Historical Society and League of Women Voters.

She realized she had to cut back a bit when she had to schedule time to clean her own house.

"There aren't a lot of days when I have nothing" to do, she remarked. "I have to make a day to dust; I'm dusting other places, but not my own!"

Troy lifetime

Born and raised in the circa-1888 Troy home she now owns, Ms. Noonan has spent a lifetime serving her hometown. She taught elementary school for 37 years, mostly at School 12, but retired 10 years ago with no regrets.

"Friends said, 'You're going to miss it,' but there are so many other things to do, you don't have time to miss it," she noted.

Ms. Noonan leapt into volunteering as soon as she retired. She remembered remarking to then-pastor Rev. Thomas Flanigan (now deceased) that she had some free time, if there was anything she could help out with at St. Peter's.

"The next week, I was working at Bingo!" she remembered, laughing. "Then I started cleaning the altar. That grew to [washing] the linens, decorating at holidays."

Open doors

Last year, Ms. Noonan was one of about 10 volunteers who decided to renovate the entrance doors of the church.

Although the group had no prior experience, they got together every Saturday for months, sanding down the massive doors and refinishing them. (The final product was featured on a poster created by The Evangelist to advertise Catholic Press Month earlier this year, with the slogan "Open the Doors to Faith.")

That kind of bond is typical of St. Peter's parishioners, Ms. Noonan noted: The seniors who clean the church also get together for breakfast and check on one another if someone isn't in church on Sunday.

Changes ahead

As a leader in her parish, Ms. Noonan attended the June 12 meeting in Clifton Park where Bishop Howard J. Hubbard announced "Called to be Church," a new pastoral planning process for the Albany Diocese (search on www.evangelist.org). That process will include looking at a future with fewer priests available.

Ms. Noonan pointed out that Rev. William Gorman is administrator for both St. Peter's and St. Paul the Apostle parishes in Troy, and that St. Peter's considers its members who attend the parish's Latin Masses as "a parish within the parish." That's a lot for one priest to cover.

"There's certainly going to be changes," Ms. Noonan stated. "It's inevitable. But I'll think about that tomorrow, like Scarlett O'Hara!"

For now, she added, "there's always something to do."

More interests

Ms. Noonan still squeezes in some free time. She has a nephew and two grand-nephews in Troy who just graduated, respectively, from LaSalle Institute and Our Lady of Victory School.

She's also a huge fan of Siena College's basketball team.

"I don't know why; I went to [The College of] Saint Rose!" she joked, but she added that college ball is "honest and it's fast, and you don't know what the outcome's going to be."

Sound like volunteer work?

"That's true," the busy Catholic replied.

(Volunteering ran in Ms. Noonan's family: "I remember my mother selling [PTA raffle] chances in front of the supermarket when she was 83, and I don't think anyone got by her!"

(When Mrs. McCarty approached Ms. Noonan about joining the Seton Auxiliary, she did so -- and also began working with the board of directors of TRIP, which purchased and rehabbed old Troy homes, and held seminars for future homeowners.

(Through the Historical Society, Ms. Noonan led walking tours of Troy, learning even more about the city. For example, she noted, a building not far from Troy Savings Bank Music Hall was once picked up and moved across the street to build a new apartment complex.)

(6/29/06) [[In-content Ad]]