DEBBIE-DABBLE BLOG: The Church of my Childhood , Coming Full Circle

Some time ago, I did a post when my childhood Church , St. Mary of Czestochowa ,closed.

Click HERE to read it.

This was the picture on the front page of the local newspaper after the last mass was held there......

The woman with the glasses is my Aunt Marge Kolojejchick Palmer......

It was the Church where my parents were baptized, received all their sacraments including saying their marriage vows and were both buried from.

I also received all my sacraments there......

It was where Joe and I were married....

My sons were baptized there......

And may I add that this same priest, Rev. Edward Sokoloski, not only married me but he baptized me and my sons!!

It was where we ,and many of my family members before and after us, stood on these steps and posed for pictures......

In the beginning of the 1900's, this area became home to many Eastern European immigrants....
Italian, Polish, Slovak, Russian and Lithuanian.

The Irish and Welsh had already settled here a century before.....

In many of the small towns, a church was built on virtually every street corner.

Each Nationality built their own church because they did not speak English when they came to this country and the parishioners and the priest of each church therefore spoke the same language and had immigrated from the same area...

Many of these immigrants never learned to speak English including Joe's maternal grandmother who only spoke Polish until the day she died in 1977.

Now, there are too many Catholic churches and not enough parishioners to maintain these churches so our Diocese has been closing churches left and right.

It is an unfortunate necessity.

The oldest parishioner of the Parish, locked the doors forever...

Did I attend the last Mass???

Even though one of the last times that I was in St. Mary's was for my own Mother's Funeral.......

No I did not want to attend the last Mass held in this, the church of my Childhood, I wanted to remember this Church with happiness and not with sadness...........

While they were demolishing the church, a terrible tragedy occurred, you can read about it HERE

The church had collapsed onto the crane with the owner of the demolition company inside of it, killing him.....

What a devastating blow to a community already mourning the loss of a hundred year old church......

This was all that remained and now they are building a new home on the site......

The corner stone was preserved .......

Members of the church then joined the Parish Community of the only remaining Catholic Church in the town and that church's name was changed to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton .

It is my sister's Church.......

Like many of the newly formed Parishes in this area , items from the closed or demolished Churches were saved and memorialized.........

This is what my sister's church did.........

There is the cornerstone of St. Mary's......

And this is the cornerstone of Holy Name Church , which was another church that St. Mary's had merged with about 15-20 years prior.......

They did a nice job......

That is the Bell of St. Mary's......

Here is where it was once housed......

My Dad was also janitor there for some time and I remember going up into the choir as a little girl and my Dad having to ring the Bells by hand before Mass. He would let me hold on tight to the rope and I would fly up in the air hanging on to the rope as he rang the Bells.

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton decided to sell engraved Pavers to place around the Bell and Cornerstones ......

My sister and I decided to buy one..........

But we pondered what to put on it........

We decided on this........

This, "The Frank Kolojejchick Family", we feel memorializes our original Family.......

My Dad, Frank......

My Mom, Pauline.....

My sister, Barbara.......

And me......

It was just the 4 of us....

The Frank Kolojejchick Family......

Our paver is close to the Bell......

Only fitting.....

The Church that Joe and I have belonged to for about the past 20 years is St. Maria Goretti , which is the Patron Saint of Children.

Even though I do LOVE our parish and both my parents are memorialized on a Tree Of Life in our church, there will always be a special place in my heart for St. Mary's......

I do have 2 bricks that were taken from St. Mary's that I have yet to decide how to display or what to do with them...

Any suggestions??????

If you do not have a blog, PLEASE give me some way to reply to your comment, maybe by including your email in your comment. If I can not find a way to reach you, I will reply on the post where you commented so please check back......

I hope you will come by and visit again!!

And thanks to those who took the time out of their busy day to spend a little bit of time with me!!

Hugs,
Debbie