FRIDAY POTPOURRI: HISTORY OF THE RECTORY: INTO THE WOODS

Right on Fr. Pfeiffer’s heals another priest came along who would take a weekly room at the rectory.  The priest, who visited Akron every Wednesday from a neighboring state, would take a hotel room for which his order would pay.  He had a ministry that operated out of a neighboring parish that was eventually slated to close  He came knocking on our door to see if we would be open to having the ministry move to St. Sebastian.  The young priest from Barcelona, Spain fit in well and a month or so into his ministry here I said to him, “If your order would give me a quarter of what they pay the hotel, you could just stay here every week. You would have the company of priests, an open kitchen, and not worry about check in or check out times.”  A deal was struck. 

Fr. Trullio was a delight to have around.  He was unsure about Sebastian (the dog) but he did enjoy joining us for the dog’s daily walks.  On such walks we talked about the differences between Barcelona and Akron and surprisingly Akron was not always the loser.  “Why do you Americans build your cities in the woods?” he asked one day.  Our neighborhood is well inside the boundaries of the city of Akron and is by no means in “the woods,” but if you have ever been to Barcelona, you might understand why he asked this question.  

He was also fascinated by yard sales.  It took a couple of weeks for him to wrap his mind around people taking things out of their houses, putting them on their lawn, and selling them.  An offer of joining us for a dog walk was usually accompanied by the question, “Will we be able to stop by a yard sale today you suppose?”  It became a fruitful endeavor as more furniture for empty rooms was found.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: HISTORY OF THE RECTORY: THE LOGGIA CONTINUED

One day, knowing that I did not have a cook, a pastor (who had once employed me as a painter when I was a seminarian) and his cook who always wowed me with her culinary expertise offered to come to St. Sebastian and throw a dinner for the three of us.  Late in the afternoon a car pulled up and bags of groceries, enough to feed small village, were loaded into the house.  Organized pandemonium ensued.  Pots clanged, flour filled the air, and arguments worthy of a Nero Wolf novel concerning the correct amount of some herb or spice filled the house along with the smells of cooking.  The dog and I were sequestered to a corner of the kitchen where we were allowed to watch and ask questions.  My main job was to keep uncorking wine bottles to keep the cooks fueled and watch the unraveling drama. 

A couple of hours into the process there was a sudden silence.  Dinner needed some time by itself to finish up.  But in the meantime, there were hors d’ oeuvres in the living room that required our immediate attention.  

The low table in my office/living room was loaded down with spicy meats, cheeses and wonderfully breaded and deep fried things.  Dinner could become superfluous if we were not very careful.  This alone was a feast set for a king – a most gracious house warming gift.

The cook for the evening having slipped away to finish up things in the dinning room returned to announce that it was now time to eat.  We prayed and headed to the table.  Our hostess for the evening inquired about the prudence of leaving the unguarded food on the low table with Sebastian around.  “He has never so much as made a request of people food,” I proudly informed her, “I think we need not worry,” so, in great confidence, we descended upon the dining room table.

After dinner we took coffee out on the newly dubbed loggia.  It was looking quite sporting by now.  The security light had been removed and replaced with a simple candle chandelier that had been purchased at the end of the camping season for a song along with a “last one” floor model garden fountain.  Both of my friends who were serious hobbyists, antiquarians, and infinitely curious after expressing their delight in the room asked the question, “But what is under the Astroturf?” 

The truth was that I wondered myself.  Why would anybody put down that green plastic atrocity if it were not for a very good reason?  I surmised that it was probably just a cement floor and this may have been an improvement.

“Are you sure?” asked the cook setting down her coffee cup.

“Well . . . no.”

The priest set down his coffee cup and leaned forward.  “Haven’t you checked my boy?”

“I’m sure it’s nothing special.  If it was it wouldn’t be covered then would it?”

They looked conspiratorially at each other.  This night was not going to end well.

“If I were you and this was my house,” said the cook in a tone unmistakably underscored with a challenge of an adult speaking to a child, “nothing would keep me, at this very moment, from taking up at least a corner to see what was under there.”

“Yeah, but who knows what mess we might get ourselves into?”

“But my dear boy,” said the priest, “think of what great discovery there might be!”

I opened my mouth to say something but realized it would only postpone the inevitable and it was already getting a bit late.  We got up and went to a corner and I prayed that we would find nothing but cement under the floor covering.  I bent down and started prying up a corner.  The two conspirators loomed over me.  An initial lifting revealed two, grey, unimpressive sandstone blocks.  “Doesn’t look like much,” I said.

“Keep going.  Just a bit further,” they encouraged.

Another couple of inches revealed square tiles in burnt hues of yellow, red, and orange.  It was the worst possible news.  I heard a gasp over my shoulder.  “Look,” I said trying for one last dodge, “Surely there is a huge crack or a space they had to patch with cement in order for them to have covered nice tile in Astroturf.  I think we should stop until we are better prepared to deal with the mess we are making.”

But they were undaunted.  “I’ll clear the plates and keep the coffee heated in the kitchen,” cried the first, “And I will help the boy clear the porch of all this furniture!” cried the other.

An hour later (and into the dark part of the evening) there was a lawn full of furniture, yards and yards of plastic grass to haul to the dumpster, the coffee had grown tepid, but we stood on a wonderful discovery: a floor of five squares of tiles the color of late fall surrounded by blocks of sandstone.  The floor was in almost perfect condition under squiggly lines of black glue.

That the daring project turned out so well made the odious task of reassembling the loggia less of a burden.  Unfortunately almost everything used for the dinner was not dishwasher safe and we had a long time to recount the adventure over washing a drying more plates than any three people should use in one sitting.  

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: HISTORY OF THE RECTORY - RECOVERING ROOMS

One of the most interesting spaces in the house is a room that runs along the back of the garages, a half flight of stairs down from the main hallway It is about ten feet wide and forty feet long.  Two walls are solid brick and the other two broken up by a series of six, floor to ceiling arches of screened windows that look out on to the park across the street.  The ceiling is of dark timber with two copper light fixtures (another having gone missing and been replaced with a ghastly security light) and, at the time of this part of the story, it had a floor covered with Astroturf and the space packed with boxes and furniture.  It was a storage room.  The potential and desirability of the room was immediately evident and space was found to store the boxes and furniture elsewhere, patio furniture was excavated from out of the garage and re-commissioned, a tapestry from a local thrift shop was tacked to the wall, and plants and some old decommissioned candle sticks gave the room the final touches.  It easily became one of the favorite rooms to hang out in.

My sister was the first to voice her disapproval of the word “porch” for this space.  Remember that our experience of a porch was the newspaper stoop.  This room was too nice a space simply to be called a porch or breezeway.  A contest was launched to find a better word for this space but they all felt just as bland or definitionally deficient.  Then one day, in the record’s room in the basement of the rectory, trying to put some organization to the blueprints of all of the parish buildings, from the floor plan for the rectory a new word was added to my vocabulary.  Written in the architect’s hand where the room struggling for a name was to be found, was the word “loggia.”

As it turns out, a loggia is an open sided, roofed gallery that runs along the front of a building.  This is exactly what this room was before a second story was plopped on top of it.  All being satisfied with the word, from then on we retreated to the “loggia.”  (It was about a month into using this word that my architect brother in law pointed out that the “g”s in the word loggia were soft.  Ooops.)

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: HISTORY OF THE RECTORY - IT ALL SOUNDS RATHER FISHY

Still there is some call for someone to cook.  I do not mind cooking but know that I won’t.  A busy day will lead right up to the supper hour and evening appointments follow.  There is time in there for prayer and eating but not much for just being quiet for spell.  So I know, from experience, that I will not cook.  In my younger days I would sacrifice eating.  Today, I would subsist entirely on salami sandwiches with tons of mayo.  So food is still arranged.

The former pastor gathered a team of cooks who volunteered to make dinner for the rectory four days a week headed up by a team captain who served as rectory cook for special occasions.  Fr. Karg set a meeting with the captain of the kitchen one day before handing over the reigns of the parish.  When she walked into the kitchen I cried out, “Cathy!” and threw her a hug.  We had been great friends in college and had sort of lost track of each other.  Fate would throw us back together at St. Sebastian.

After catching up, we discussed dietary needs.  I am really quite easy to feed.  The only requirement was no fish.  Nothing that comes out of the water.  Every time I mentioned this people would laugh much to my confusion,   Cathy finally told me that the reason was that the former pastor would only eat fish.  

“Please tell people I am allergic to fish,” I told her.  I could not bear another round of, “Oh!  But you have not tired MY fish.”  Then comes the inevitable, “But it doesn’t taste like fish,” or “It doesn’t smell fishy.”  I don’t care.  Really.  And, pardon my rambling, why would it be better if it neither smelled nor tasted like fish?  Why not just not have fish then?  Would I be proud of my beef in the same way?  No.  I WANT my beef to both smell and taste like beef.  So why would I want to eat something only if it doesn’t seem fully what it is.  

I know, you fish lovers out there, I don’t understand.  Fine.  I accept that.  But let us be absolutely clear:  If my cow falls into the water before it is made into a burger I won’t eat it.

This is the story of the very last time I ate fish:  In my second assignment a pleasant young couple moved to the neighborhood and asked me over for dinner and to bless their new house.  We ate dinner in community at that assignment so I said that I couldn't come over for dinner but I would come over for desert and to bless the house.  So on the appointed night, after eating dinner, I headed out.  It was a dark rainy night.  It was odd because it seemed like the rain was washing what little light there was out of the sky.

Then I turned down their street which was the darkest street on the that dark night.  Their house was the darkest house on the darkest street on that darkest night.  No kidding.  In fact, I thought they may not be home.  I found out why their house was so dark when I walked up to the door: all the windows were covered with plywood.

They were, in fact, home however and graciously invited me in.  We sat in the living room which, besides the couch and a chair, was still largely boxes.  After a few minutes of chatting it became apparent that they were making dinner and expecting me to eat (again) before the blessing.  The lady of the house stood and proclaimed with much pride and joy that we were having some sort of rare and expensive thing out of the water that they would NEVER have on their own because it was so expensive.  This was a treat for them (in treating me.)

To make a long story short (too late) we sat down to dinner and began to eat.  I tried to take the TINIEST bit of the gourmet fish food and the scoop it up with as much rice as I could manage and eat.  Then I would try to get by talking (thereby avoiding eating) but my hosts had impeccable manners and would stop eating if I stopped eating.

Finally I said, "OH!  I am STUFFED!"  "But Father," they said, "You barely ate your fish!"  "Oh, you know," I replied, "I eat like a bird."  (A bird that doesn't eat fish.)

So they packed up my meal to enjoy later.  And I did come back to it later.  Or rather it came back to me.  All night long.  Over and over again.  

And thus is the story of the very last time I voluntarily at fish.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: HISTORY OF THE RECTORY: DINNING IN

One of the most interesting discoveries was made when the industrial coffee machine, declared to be in the wrong place, was moved to the other side of the kitchen.  Behind it on the counter was a space in the wall about two feet square and one foot deep.  There were keys, one a skeleton key, hanging on a hook so covered with dust that it was obvious they had not seen use for some time.  The back of the space was a little door with a handle on it that opened out into the dining room, the purpose of which was explained to us during a visit with a priest who had been assigned in the hay day of the parish with Monsignor Zwilser.

The dining room, with its birch wood paneled walls, simple plaster crown molding, chandelier, and built in china cabinets, originally consisted of two rooms, the larger formal dining room and a much smaller room between it and the kitchen, set off by a proscenium arch.  The smaller of the rooms was once a smaller dining room.  After the new church was built and a hallway from the rectory to the sacristy was created, the window in the small dining room was made into a door and this little room became nothing more than an intersection between the church, rectory dining room and kitchen.  We stuck a studio piano and pump organ in the space a dubbed it the music room.  The organ was given to me many years before I became a priest by a college that wanted to continue my services for another couple of weeks and had run out of funds to pay me.  In exchange for the organ I stayed on and it has been following me ever since.

The smaller dining room was separated from the main dining room by a thick, velvet curtain that hung in the arch.  Monsignor ate at the long table in the main room alone.  Behind the curtain were the parochial vicars at their more humble table.  Before the parkay floor was added there was a floor buzzer by Monsignor’s seat.  When he had finished a course he would press in the buzzer with his foot and the little door would open in the small dining room with the next course.  One of the priests would take it and pass through the velvet curtain, exchange the next course for the empty plate, return it through the window at which time the rest of the priests would receive their meals; priests and cooks never passing between the two worlds separated by the swinging butler’s door until the room was vacated.

Things are of course much different today, residents tramping between the two rooms cooking, setting up, and eating with no bells to mark the end of a course.  The age of live-in help passed away mostly due to the advent of Social Security.  A woman of a certain age at one time may have found herself in a difficult spot or she may have found herself plain board.  Back in the day, living in at the rectory and taking care of the helpless, vowed bachelors might provide her income, a place to live, and company to manage.  It is almost unheard of today.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: HISTORY OF THE RECTORY CHAPTER THE FOURTH: TAMING THE KITCHEN

My family came over to help me break in the new house.  Mother and Father having passed, the task was left to my sister Mickie, my cousin Bernadette, and my Aunt Mary.  All setting off to explore and snoop we became separated from each other.  The house is large but not that large.  But the privacy walls erected in hallways made parts of the house isolated and the floor plan confusing.  We became sufficiently lost in the unfamiliar surroundings and had to use cell phones to be brought together.  The reunion was reminiscent of characters in a haunted house movie finally coming together after having gone their separate ways for some inexplicable reason.  Together after our adventures, it was decided that it was time to break in the kitchen.

My family considers this room one of the most important to a priest.  When I was first ordained my cousin Bernie bought me a cookbook with the admonition, “You are now becoming a public figure.  The only place people cannot tell you what to do is in the bedroom and in the kitchen.  Learn how to cook.”

In general people either love this kitchen or they hate it.  There is very little middle ground.  It is large, high ceilinged with tile floors, and a butcher block table right in the middle.  I am somewhat naive when it comes to kitchens but was rather taken in with its dual microwaves.  The assembled family fell on the positive side concerning the kitchen.

It is located in what is called the service corridor of the house.  This section of the house also contains the live-in’s bedrooms, which had been transformed into offices, the live-in’s living room now serving as the breakfast and lunch room, and a private staircase which givES access to the priest’s quarters upstairs and the  laundry room, boiler room and storage/pantry downstairs.

The first job was simply trying to figure where everything was.  Here I was gently pushed aside as the new order was taking shape.  “Spatulas!  These belong by the oven!  Knives!  These belong by the butcher’s table!  These pots and pans need to be handy!  These can go under the counter!”  And so the kitchen quickly took shape and my relatives did it with such authority that I have been afraid to change it to this very day.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: HISTORY OF THE RECTORY: IT'S A DOG'S LIFE (END OF CHAPTER 3)

The next cause for concern was (the dog's) name.  Upon hearing the name “Roomie” people’s first reaction was always first, “Oh . . .” followed by as polite an, “Eww,” as they could muster.  First impressions of the name always turned to rheumatoid arthritis or rheumy eyes.   Explaining the name helped.  The dog was thought to be a companion for a person who was somewhat bedridden and he had named him Roomie as in, “This is my roommate – Roomie.”  But explaining this became old quickly and it did not mitigate the problem that still nobody liked the name.  But what name did fit him?  Days were spent thinking about it.  This led me to believe that I would not make a fit dad.  My child would be 15 before I came up with a name; the quick finding of names of things not coming naturally to me.

Our mother parish, St. Vincent, right next door and the oldest parish in the city, came to the rescue.  The pastor there had a dog, who regularly “wrote” an article in the parish bulletin.  He was named Vinnie after the patron saint of the parish.  With the precedent set, Roomie, the dog of the newest parish within the city limits, would now be named Sebastian.

I will be the first to admit that Sebastian is an awfully pretentious name for a dog and a nickname was eagerly sought.  One day, shortly after his christening with his new name, a delivery man came to the door and took obvious delight in the dog.  “What is his name?”  he asked petting him on the head.  Upon being informed that it was Sebastian he exclaimed, “Why that was me Pa’s name!”  Quite intrigued we eagerly asked if his father was ever given any kind of nickname.  “Sure he was,” said the delivery man.  Excited to find out what Sebastian’s new nickname might be he was asked what his father was called.  “Busty!” was the proud answer.

How they got “Busty” out of “Sebastian” is beyond me.  In any event, Sebastian was not going to be called “Busty.”  It seems inappropriate for a rectory dog of expected high morals.  So for the most part he remains Sebastian though there are a few other nicknames to which he will readily answer: Poops, Sea Bass (my least favorite), Bosco (I don’t know why) Seraphim (long story) and a host of other names – but mostly he is just Sebastian.

Now after everyone went home at night there was something living in the house that could tell me if I should be concerned about a noise, that would alert me if I should miss the doorbell, and could divine which of the doors it was that needed answering without me running to the four corners of the house.  It was a joy having a house mate.

I needn’t have worried about being alone however.  A little patience would have revealed that the rectory was destined to be full of residents.  And they were all welcome.  As long as they liked dogs.

AND I HATE HAVING TO DRIVE 6 BLOCKS TO GET TO A GAS STATION

Although we don’t know the exact day, this year we are celebrating the 185th anniversary of the first Mass celebrated within the city limits of the city of Akron.  That is not to say that there wasn’t perhaps a Mass celebrated in the area before this time but that this is the first known and recorded Mass.  

In 1808 all of Ohio was part of the Diocese of Kentucky where Bishop Benedict Joseph Flaget was the first bishop.  He had about 10 priests to serve this vast area.  Because of the growth of Catholics in Ohio, Dominican Father Edward D. Ferwick was named the first Bishop of the newly established Diocese of Cincinatti.  He undoubtedly sent priests to the area to minister.  They would travel from Canton through the woods and stay in people’s houses or even, from time to time, out in the open.  Mass was celebrated in taverns, log cabins, in public buildings, and non-Catholic churches.  Save for these visits, residents of Akron would have to travel to Canton, Doylestown or Cleveland for the sacraments.

Akron grew owing to the canal and this brought many Catholics to the area.  1833 is the year that we know for sure that a Mass was celebrated within the Akron city limits. The Rev. John Martin Henni who would later become the Archbishop of Milwaukee, came to say Mass in the log cabin of James McAllister, a local contractor.  This is the anniversary that we are celebrating.

The pastor in Doylestown, seeing that the number of Catholics was growing, purchased separate sacramental register books to record baptisms, confirmations and wedding taking place in Akron beginning in 1937.  Bishop Purcell, bishop of Cincinnati, visited the McAllister home again that home again that year and spoke to area residents about founding a parish that would serve the Akron and Cuyahoga Falls area and so the missionary parish of St. Vincent de Paul was founded, preceding the establishment of the Diocese of Cleveland by 10 years.

A Mass celebrating this history will take place at St. Vincent de Paul Parish (the mother church of Akron) on Thursday, September 27th at 7PM and you are invited to attend.

Most of the above information comes from Murray Powers’ book, “History of the Catholic Church in Summit County from Origin through ’76"

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: HISTORY OF THE RECTORY: MAKE ROOM FOR A NEW PARTNER

The next part of the project was that of changing the copy room into an office in order to get all of the offices off of the bedroom floor.  Thee is just something creepy and inappropriate about taking a shower and getting dressed in your bedroom while in the very next room someone is meeting with a bereft parishioner.  

The first move would need to be the evicting of the copy machine out of its own office in order to free up some space.  It turns out that if the copy machine were a person it would be appreciated for its efficiency and hard work, but nobody would want to partner with him because he took up  lot of space and was smelly and noisy.  Conversely, nobody wanted to be too far away from him.  Put him in the secretary’s office?  He was too noisy and it was already too packed in there.  The basement?  Too far away and too damp.  The hallway?  Too small and there were no available outlets.  The volunteer office?  Move over and make room for your large, smelly, loud new partner.

With this space and some other creative adjustments in the house, all of the offices were moved out of the bedroom hallway.  A little ground had been claimed for house!  That would not be the end game for the little office in the front of the house.  Before things really settled there would be a few more moves but by and large the staff was amiable about their relocations.  It turns out they were uncomfortable having offices amongst the bedrooms also.

Interestingly enough, the change in status of the rooms altered our taxes.  Every square foot of the house needs to be accounted for.  Having offices turned back into living space means a slight loss of a tax break for the Church.  But hopefully the investment in sanity and appropriateness would be worth it.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: RECTORY HISTORY: STEP INTO MY OFFICE

One visits the offices by walking down a long sandstone walk boarded by flowers and azalea bushes that bloom beautifully in the spring.  Steps lead up to the arched front door of the rectory.  When I first arrived at the parish, the steel screen door was terribly rusted and a host of assorted and abandoned call boxes decorated the door frame.  One of my first official acts concerning the rectory was to clean this area up and make the house more inviting.

Everything electronic save for the doorbell was removed.  The thick, heavy wooden door was removed, sanded, stained, its hardware cleaned, and rehung.  Flags were hung on either side of the door; one the flag of the United States, the other the Vatican flag.  A priest friend who is did not approve of this touch looked at the Vatican flag and snidely comment, “What? Is the pope in residence?”  “No,” I responded dryly, “and neither is the president of the United States.”  It also makes a great marker when telling the pizza delivery guy where to drop off the pizzas.

Finding a new quality screen door was going to prove to be more difficult.  A shop was found that made special order screen doors.  The dimension were given to the man behind the counter immediately surmised, “So, you must live in West Akron.  We get a lot of strange doors from that part of town.”  Unfortunately the price he quoted was far too high to justify.  So were the doors we found through online sites.  Strangely enough, after making such a big fuss about the project, a good quality door was found at the local hardware store for a reasonable price.

The font entry was now ready.  The grounds crew had planted giant pots of flowers on either side of the door below the flags, and, at my sister’s insistence, geraniums bloomed from the cement planter at the second floor window over the door while verdant vines hung down softening the ornate stone arches. 

Just past that front door one finds himself in a small reception hall with a barreled ceiling with a dark, slightly ornate lighting fixture hanging from it.  This is the original office area and would be the first area indoors to experience my meddling.  Here, a picture of the pope, the bishop, the former pastor, and a composite of all the former parochial vicars were hung.  It was an act that felt a little exhilarating and, to be quite frank, a little sacrilegious to move the former pastor’s portrait over to where the former pastors were hung and replace the vacated space with my own image.  Finishing the job I winced at seeing my picture.  I have spent the rest of my time here studiously avoiding looking at it, the only time it requiring my attention is when a pope or a bishop changes.

     

To the right, the former pastor’s office, was now the office of the parish secretary and with her the parish records, various forms and envelopes and stationary of all kinds, an anachronistic typewriter, FAX machine, office supplies, mailboxes, and in general, anything that would not fit anywhere else.  Across the hall in what was the secretary’s office was now inhabited by the copy machine, copy paper, stapler, cutting board and all things copy machine related.  

It was announced that monies had been set aside in the previous year’s budget (before I arrived) to put drop ceilings in these rooms and that the workmen would be arriving within a week.  I probably overreacted but my abhorrence was real.  There are a few materials in modern architecture that I detest more than drop ceilings.  “Somebody call them immediately and tell them not to come!  Don’t let them anywhere near this house!  There will be no drop ceilings!”  I needn’t have been so dramatic.  They just shrugged and said, “Okay.” 

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: HISTORY OF THE ST. SEBASTIAN RECTORY: RAISING FUNDS WHEN FUNDS WERE SCARCE

The Parish of Saint Sebastian was founded in 1928.  Until 1805 the east boundary of the parish was the western boundary of the United States.  The modern day road marking this line, Portage Path Road, roughly follows the trail Native Americans once used to portaged their canoes from the Cuyahoga to the Tuscawarus river.  Doing this allowed them to travel from the Great Lakes all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico via waterways save for this relatively short stretch of land.  

The land on which the parish buildings stand were once was part of a large farm that served as the county home.  Evidence of this farm exists to this day by way of a city park located one block east of the church.  Every summer rectangles of slightly greener and quicker growing grass appear in perfect rows at one end of the park, remnants of what once served as the graveyard for residents of the county home.  The graveyard was moved when the home was moved further out into the country when the city invaded what was once nothing but farmland.  After having done some excavation to improve the flooding conditions of the park, the city declared that all of the bodies had indeed been removed.  But I don’t go walking in that park on All Hollow’s Eve at midnight just the same.  (Just kidding.)

Originally the parish was to be located about an eighth of a mile from where it now stands but anti-Catholic sentiment forced them to buy some former swamp land which, in the long run, became a much more ideal location.  God works in wondrous ways.

The first building to be built was a combination church, school, convent, parish offices, and social hall.  The pastor lived at the local Catholic hospital and served as chaplain there until he moved to a rented home a few blocks south of the rectory.  But in the mid-thirties that house was sold forcing Father Zwisler and his parochial Vicar, Father John Murphy to find another house to rent.  It was at this point that the pastor decided that it was time to build a parish rectory.

Fishing around in the parish archives, I came across some old newspapers that the parish published in 1936 concerning the campaign to build a rectory.  The masthead of the “The Local Motive” was a head on picture of a locomotive charging toward the reader and written on it it declared that the parish wanted to raise $30,000 to help erase debt and $30,000 to build the rectory.  “Give it right away!” it urged.  

From reading the various articles, it sounds as though the project was not without controversy.  The great depression was still on, the bank that held the parish’s saving had just failed and this was no small amount of money.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index, $100 in 1936 equaled about $1,813 in purchasing power in 2018.  Today it would be the equivalent of raising well over a million dollars.  But it was successful and soon the rectory was constructed.

There is surprisingly little known about how the rectory originally looked interiorly.  There are no pictures of the furniture, window treatments, or wall colors.  Apparently the floors were covered in brown linoleum which still exists in some closets and under the carpeting.  The only picture of the original interior of the house of which I am aware is of two couples who were married in the pastor’s office before the young grooms were sent off to World War II.  In the upper right hand corner you can just about make out the end of a curtain rod, remarkably similar to ones found in the living room but that were only installed recently, and a bit of a curtain with flowers on it.  Not much else is known.

Despite the size of the parish and the house, it was only built with three offices; the large one for the pastor which also contains a vault, and two smaller offices, one for the secretary and one for all other priests to share.  This was not all that uncommon.  Unlike modern parishes, there were no business managers, bookkeepers, youth directors, directors of religious education, marketing directors, development directors, let alone computers, copy machines, FAXes, and a host of other large electronic equipment we cannot live without today.  Parishes were not expected to do as much, priest’s roles were a bit more limited, and so the construction of a hallway of offices would have seemed an extravagant waist.  Those three offices still function as the main offices of the parish though their use as changed.  

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: HISTORY OF THE RECTORY: CHAPTER 2

On a drizzly afternoon in June, the Knights of Columbus council at St. Sebastian came to St. Clare in Lyndhurst, about 45 minutes away and where I had served as parochial vicar for the past three years to help pack up my belonging and move me south to Akron.  St. Clare had been very good to me.  The rectory there had been recently renovated and my room was very generous.  It was one of two parishes in the diocese that still had a live-in who cooked and did laundry; Social Security and rising standards of living having all but wiped out the need for a person to find work in a rectory to make ends meet.

Though that rectory that stands out in the diocese as a very fortunate place for a priest to live, the St. Clare rectory was in the middle of the church and school parking lot as well as right off of one of the busiest roads in Cleveland: Mayfield Road.  Mayfield is one of those magical roads on which you can find just about anything you might need with the exception of quiet and easy driving.  Businesses on the East side of Cleveland gravitate to this road that stretches from Little Italy in the heart of Cleveland to the rich suburbs far out toward the rising sun.  But that also means that it is a nasty tangle of traffic most of the day and being a main thoroughfare, if an emergency vehicle is going to be called to any place, it is going to go past St. Clare on the way there with sirens screaming.  

One night, waking me from a deep sleep, the sirens made their usual racket becoming louder and louder as it neared the parish and then, at its peak, abruptly stopped instead of fading as it made its way past.  I opened my eyes to find my room awash in blue and red flashing lights.  Padding over to my window I saw a car turned over on the immaculate front lawn.  Apparently someone had thought it a good parking spot but not wanting to mess up the lawn with tire tracks decided to park it on its roof.  (Fortunately no one was hurt – or wouldn’t be until the next morning when the hangover and the clarity of what happened the night before set in.)

All the rectories that I had lived in previous to coming to live at St. Sebastian had been in the middle of a field of a tarmac parking lot.  This was particularly evident at my first parish when car alarms were finishing their first blush of being standard equipment on cars.  Gentlemen, and I use the term loosely, still thought it hysterical to wait until a female acquaintance walked by their car so they could set off the alarm from a distance and bend over laughing when the lady would screech.  Neither the women nor I, listening to it for the umpteenth time in my room, found it the least bit funny.

Privacy, then, is always at a bit of a premium.  I remember once, at St. Ambrose, I had been taking a nap, woke thirsty, and stepped out of the room to go downstairs to get a cup of water.  The door was locked to keep well intentioned persons from coming in.  After stepping out into the hall, the wind from an open window caught the door and slammed it shut locking the room up tight.  It was one of those days that I wanted desperately to have a little alone time so I snuck downstairs in my stocking feet, hair mussed (having hair then) and clothes crumpled.

I butter knife was snuck out of the kitchen and I tried to jimmy the door open.  First one person than another showed up to try to get me in my room.  Soon there was a group of about seven people offering advice on how to get the door open.  The handle was completely disassembled and still there was no gaining entrance.  I snuck away, got an extension ladder and, in front of the entire school out for recess, climbed up to my window, slid in and announced, “I’m in my room!  You can all leave now!” and then curled up on my couch to finish a nap.

Of course, having people around is also a blessing.  When John Paul II died and I was in one of my wanting to be left alone moods, I got that same ladder out and climbed to the roof of the church to hang the black mourning banners.  A strong wind came along and blew the ladder down trapping me in the roof (this was long before I owned a cell phone.)  Fortunately a kind jogger came along and heard my cries for assistance and righted the ladder.

In contrast, the rectory at St. Sebastian is located in the middle of green lawns, hemmed in by the school and the church building.  But no general parking lot comes near it.  Across the brick avenue is a park named Elm Hill Park though everyone calls it Forest Lodge which is the building that stands on its grounds.  The new building built by the WPA was named after the hunting lodge that once stood there when this part of Akron was considered way out in the country.  All in all it is about as nice a setting one could hope for while still being inside the city limits and it was this house that the truck carrying all of my worldly goods drove up to using the curving brick driveway under a canopy of oak and maple trees to the rear entrance of the rectory.