Miss Antoinette Cesare: The Makings of St. Mary's
In every parish there are a few people who have a fierce attachment to their church. They provide the skills and energy, often behind the scenes, that support the spiritual work of the pastor. At St. Mary's, no living person better exemplifies this than Miss Antoinette Cesare.
Antoinette was nine years old when St. Mary's was built in 1922, and she recalls a lot about the church's early history:
She fondly remembers the day the bell was dedicated, a few months after the first Mass was said at St. Mary's. "The bell was on the ground in front of the church, and Bishop Walsh blessed it with Mrs. Elizabeth Diamond, a parishioner, as sponsor. Workmen carried the heavy bell into the church and then raised it up into the steeple with ropes and pulleys," she said. "I was small," she added wistfully, "but I can still remember it."
She recalls the Schad construction firm, which built St. Mary's Church. One of the builder's sons, James Schad, eventually became auxiliary bishop of the Camden diocese. Antoinette remembers Bishop Schad saying, "Because my father built it, St. Mary's has always been special to me."
Antoinette had this to say about the founders' roll: "During the early days, it was in a dark frame, but in the 1950s Father O'Connor had it put in a lighter frame to match the new paneling that we put in the church at that time."
These are just a few of the recollections Antoinette related last May when I visited her in the Cesare home. Overflowing with fresh irises from the family garden, the hip-roofed farmhouse was built by Antoinette's parents during the 1920s. In this house she has lived all her adult life--with her sisters, Angeline, Mildred, and Rose. (Their nephew, Mr. Stephen Michael Cesare, spends a lot of time here to ensure that all is well with his aunts.)
Antoinette's light complexion, blue eyes, and blond hair belie her southern Italian ancestry. However, the commingling of a Neapolitan phrase, now and then, with her rural south Jersey phraseology makes her Italian heritage abundantly clear.
She spent her early years helping her parents on the farm. As a teenager, Antoinette began to work at the Kimble Glass Company, where she remained forty-four years calibrating scientific glassware. Despite the demands of the family home and her work at Kimble Glass, Antoinette has made time for St. Mary's continuously over the past sixty-eight years. She still cleans the church and holds dear the forty-five years that she used to do it with Mrs. Betty Rein, whose health now prevents her from doing volunteer work. Furthermore, the eighteen years as prefect of the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin, and the electronic carillon that she (together with her sisters) donated are just the tip of an iceberg of contributions that she has made to St. Mary's.
When I visited Antoinette and her sisters last May, I arrived at ten o'clock in a morning drizzle. When I left four hours later--surfeited with reminiscences and Old World edibles--the sun had come out, and it was a perfect spring afternoon in south Jersey. As I started to drive away, Antoinette stopped me and said, "Here's your umbrella, Billy."
Being called by that old familiar name reinforced what I had sensed all along during the visit: I was in the presence of a woman with a rich repository of lore going back many years--in a house whose inhabitants had enriched St. Mary's spiritual life incalculably.
Antoinette was nine years old when St. Mary's was built in 1922, and she recalls a lot about the church's early history:
She fondly remembers the day the bell was dedicated, a few months after the first Mass was said at St. Mary's. "The bell was on the ground in front of the church, and Bishop Walsh blessed it with Mrs. Elizabeth Diamond, a parishioner, as sponsor. Workmen carried the heavy bell into the church and then raised it up into the steeple with ropes and pulleys," she said. "I was small," she added wistfully, "but I can still remember it."
She recalls the Schad construction firm, which built St. Mary's Church. One of the builder's sons, James Schad, eventually became auxiliary bishop of the Camden diocese. Antoinette remembers Bishop Schad saying, "Because my father built it, St. Mary's has always been special to me."
Antoinette had this to say about the founders' roll: "During the early days, it was in a dark frame, but in the 1950s Father O'Connor had it put in a lighter frame to match the new paneling that we put in the church at that time."
These are just a few of the recollections Antoinette related last May when I visited her in the Cesare home. Overflowing with fresh irises from the family garden, the hip-roofed farmhouse was built by Antoinette's parents during the 1920s. In this house she has lived all her adult life--with her sisters, Angeline, Mildred, and Rose. (Their nephew, Mr. Stephen Michael Cesare, spends a lot of time here to ensure that all is well with his aunts.)
Antoinette's light complexion, blue eyes, and blond hair belie her southern Italian ancestry. However, the commingling of a Neapolitan phrase, now and then, with her rural south Jersey phraseology makes her Italian heritage abundantly clear.
She spent her early years helping her parents on the farm. As a teenager, Antoinette began to work at the Kimble Glass Company, where she remained forty-four years calibrating scientific glassware. Despite the demands of the family home and her work at Kimble Glass, Antoinette has made time for St. Mary's continuously over the past sixty-eight years. She still cleans the church and holds dear the forty-five years that she used to do it with Mrs. Betty Rein, whose health now prevents her from doing volunteer work. Furthermore, the eighteen years as prefect of the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin, and the electronic carillon that she (together with her sisters) donated are just the tip of an iceberg of contributions that she has made to St. Mary's.
When I visited Antoinette and her sisters last May, I arrived at ten o'clock in a morning drizzle. When I left four hours later--surfeited with reminiscences and Old World edibles--the sun had come out, and it was a perfect spring afternoon in south Jersey. As I started to drive away, Antoinette stopped me and said, "Here's your umbrella, Billy."
Being called by that old familiar name reinforced what I had sensed all along during the visit: I was in the presence of a woman with a rich repository of lore going back many years--in a house whose inhabitants had enriched St. Mary's spiritual life incalculably.