An Informal, Anecdotal History of Saint Francis' Parish
as Told by Past and Present Members
Pat McElroy was the first person to be paid to work in the office. She worked for Padre after the new parish hall was built. Bette Manzke was Fr. McGhee's secretary, after her, from 1978 to 1983. Roberta Beisel was secretary in 1984, then Claudette English from 1985 to 1988, Joan Jones in 1989 and 1990, and Sybil Hallman in 1991. When she resigned, Ann McGhee was our volunteer secretary until Fr. McGhee resigned. During the interim, Sally Pruit Cook served. When Fr. Allen accepted our plea, the Vestry asked Claudette to return to make the transition smooth. She was here again from 1993 until the Fall of 1996. Elaine Mecca took the job in October of 1996.
For many years, the Altar Guild membership was about 25 women. And for many years we prepared for 14 masses each week, plus all the extra services, which required tremendous dedication. For a few years, an unofficial part of the Saturday set-up was to buy flowers from our own purses, often potted plants from the grocery store. We had "flower people" and "non-flower people" serving. I always tried to schedule one flower person per Saturday.
We started out with home-made double knit vestments. As the economy improved and we grew more prosperous, we were able to buy ready-made vestments and we even had some generous donations to buy solemn-high sets. Now we can afford vestments that are beautifully made, just for our priest (but we have also gone through several sizes of priests).
Once, the supply chairman and the Altar Guild directress became dissatisfied with the salesman for the company where we ordered our sacramental wine. We tried to buy directly from the winery and found that we needed a Texas liquor license to do that. Ray Pearce checked on the requirements for a license and we decided that it was out of the question to get the license. Instead, we found a sacramental wine (i.e., a wine with no added alcohol) at a local liquor store and tried that. We had no idea that so many parishioners would notice the difference! Eventually, we swallowed our pride and meekly ordered wine from the same old salesman. -- Doris Burke