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03/06/2018 01:15 PMThe food looked delectable—chicken pot pie, salad, and fresh fruit cup—but that wasn’t the reason parishioners filled the basement of Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Essex. It was about friends, meeting old ones and making new ones, at the monthly Mary and Martha Club lunch program.
Sarah Carnabuci got a ride from Bob Lombardi.
“She doesn’t drive anymore,” he explained.
“He likes coming, too,” Carnabuci said. “We both look forward to it.”
Dorothy Deckelman, herself a regular attendee, drove Florence Dutka to the church program.
“I don’t get out much anymore,” Dutka said.
At 94, she, too, has given up driving, but has seemingly boundless energy for a good conversation. Her memories of Our Lady of Sorrows go back a lifetime.
She was baptized in the church, but not the one that stands now. Rather, the church was housed in an older structure that burned down in 1926. Confirmation, however, took place at St. Joseph’s in Chester, because a bishop was to be in attendance. At the time, Our Lady of Sorrows was a satellite church, known as a mission church, attached to the Chester congregation. It was back to Our Lady of Sorrows, however, when Dutka was married.
Now Dutka is a Mary and Martha Club regular.
“I love to come to see the people. It’s awful to live alone; you know that happens at a certain age,” she said.
St. Joseph’s and Our Lady of Sorrows are now yoked parishes, each maintaining its own congregation but both now served by the same minister, Father Arul Rajan Peter.
According to Toni Frese, a member of the original organizing committee, the parish council decided some three years ago to put a new program in place for seniors. There was no formal decision on who qualified as a senior, but the general consensus was 60 and older.
“Everyone seems well over 60,” Frese noted. “It’s for seniors in the parish to have fun and socialize: fun, food, and friendship,” she said.
She emphasized that the program is not a lunch for the general public, but is limited to parishioners of Our Lady of Sorrows and St. Joseph’s.
Joan and Dennis Welch, owners of the Wheatmarket in Chester and members of the Essex congregation, provide the food, paid for by the parish with occasional additional contributions to the program. None of the diners pay for the lunches.
Ed McCaffrey not only has lunch, he also takes pictures of the gathering each month and sets up the audio track for the background music.
Larry Bolanowkski, attending with his wife Kathy, is working on writing a history of the church.
“This is a time to get to know people,” he said. “You can put together names and faces. You know after church, everybody is in a hurry to be going to whatever comes next.”
“I always meet someone new when I come here,” said Josephine Marshall of Chester.
Catherine D’Amore, who lives in Fairfield but also has a home in Ivoryton added, “You don’t feel like a stranger here. I go to church in Essex more often than Fairfield.”
Frese said that there are often programs that accompany lunch, sometimes music, other times more informational as the talk by a representative of AARP on scams directed toward seniors. And there is always a raffle; tickets are given free as people enter. Many of the prizes are contributed by the guests themselves. At a recent visit a small table held boxes of candy and several gigantic Hershey chocolate kisses. Winners got to pick their prize. Dutka chose a large chocolate kiss when her number was called.
Many of the people at the lunch were lifelong Essex residents who shared memories with a visitor of the town as it once had been. Most missed the stores that were once a thriving part of Main Street: a grocery store, a pharmacy, a variety store, even a movie theater. Martha Deckelman remembered when the only local bank was in Essex and residents of other towns came to Essex on Friday nights to deposit weekly earnings or cash their checks.
Frese announced there were two birthdays to celebrate, leading the group in singing to Deckelman as well as Dave Dyer (without revealing ages). However, out in the parking lot with his wife Lydia, Dyer admitted he was 90.
“And they said it would never last,” quipped Lydia Dyer.
The couple has been married 68 years.
The whole midday program took about an hour and a half, with a plate of cookies at the door as people left. Al Johnson, attending the lunch with his wife Angela, summed up what drew regular lunchers back every month.
“Lots of friends, grace, fellowship, and the food is fantastic,” he said.