She has been a member of the parish for more than one-third of its 275 years but her family has been part of it for generations before she arrived.
Bally native Rita Hartman, 92, grew up on Main Street with a view of Most Blessed Sacrament Church which celebrates its 275 anniversary in 2016. Rita’s parents, William and Sarah Witman, made sure she and her two siblings grew up in the church, taking them to mass on Sundays and the Holy days, as well as devotions and confessions. Her grandparents, Alphenus and Fianna Eck, would take her to First Friday masses at 5 a.m. with a horse and buggy.
Fr. Aloysius Scherf was pastor of MBS at the time of her birth and the first priest Rita remembers. “He was a nice man. He would walk up to our home and play cards with my parents. My dad would drive him home after they were done,” she recalls.
Times were simpler when Rita was growing up. “There was no carpet, the altars were simpler, it was a smaller parish and people worked together,” she says. It was a family atmosphere with all generations taking part.
She remembers the annual parish sauerkraut supper which served as a fundraiser for the school and general repairs. The supper was held in the basement of the ‘Old School’ and although she was very young, she still helped where she could. “I did a lot of dishwashing.”
She recalls fondly the Corpus Christi processions. “We would walk in procession to the three altars on the porches on Pine Street. We followed the Blessed Sacrament which was carried by the priest and then placed on the altars. There was then benediction at each of the altars before we went back into church. It was very holy. There was always a good turnout.”
The Depression was a big influence on her youth. “Everyone was poor. We had one good dress for Sunday. And as soon as you got home from church you changed. You had a couple of outfits for school and play clothes,” Rita says. She notes her mother made all her clothes, usually from feed bags. They had chickens in the back yard. The feed came in cloth bags and in the frugal ways of the times, they reused everything possible.
Gift giving was also sparse. “If we got an orange at Christmas we were happy. One year I got a doll and I was very happy,” she recalls.
She remembers going to Vespers during Advent and Stations of the Cross during Lent. She remembers the Mass being said in Latin and the pew rent. “Our pew was the third long pew on the Blessed Mother side. The nuns had the first two pews and Abbie Schell’s pew was behind ours.”
There was also a High mass at 10 a.m. on Sundays, but she rarely attended that mass preferring the 7:30 mass.
Funerals were done from the home of the deceased. Her grandfather, Amos, was the undertaker in Bally. Her parents would help with the funerals either by helping to embalm, make the casket or drive the hearse.
Rita went to school at Most Blessed Sacrament, now St. Francis Academy, and remembers walking to school in snow that was a couple of feet deep. She attended at the ‘old’ school where the Sisters of St. Francis taught several grades in the same room with up to 45 students. She notes that sisters could do that because the older children helped the younger children and the sisters were strict disciplinarians.
She also sang in the school’s choir and they sang in Latin.
Today she is still active in the church and attends Mass weekly. She plans to attend the church’s opening mass celebration on Saturday, Jan. 16 at the 4:30 mass where the oldest and youngest parishioners will be recognized.
