Praying the Rosary
Praying the Rosary
In a town where 99% of the residents were protestants, praying the rosary was something very foreign to the townspeople. Many years earlier, there were two little towns next to each other - a small Roman Catholic community called St. Petersburg and the much larger protestant community on the other side of the tracks called Eureka. At some point the Catholics left St. Petersburg and formed a small community of 800 people roughly 25 miles farther south. When dad moved into Eureka in 1955, the disdain for Roman Catholics was still prevalent among a few of Eureka's residents. A Vigilante groups was created to "remove the heathen Catholic", but dad was by many standards...a very strong and stubborn person. He wasn't intimidated easily, and while his early years in Eureka was economically tight as a young attorney; he was determined to bring his family up in his adopted community.
Anti-Catholicism was not always apparent. I can remember one of the neighbor girls coming over and asking probing questions like, "is it true that you worship statues", or "do you really believe that the Pope is always right", or my favorite, "is it true that, in your church, if your mother does not have 12 children, she won't get to heaven." I'm certain that the latter question was inculcated into young Protestant girls to discourage intermarriage. Years later a friend and I were discussing growing up Catholic in Eureka, and he told me that his mother discouraged dating Catholic girls. And he related something that was specific to our family, "Mom said to me once that Barbara is really a nice, pretty girl...its too bad she is Catholic." The only time anti-Catholic feelings were high was during the 1960 presidential election. There was a local reverend going around town telling the townsfolk that if John F. Kennedy was elected, he would be the anti-Christ as prophesized in the doomsday book of Revelations.
It has been said that mothers are the mainstay of religion inside the family, but in our family that role was clearly Dad's. Many of the religious traditions we grew up with, were borne by dad's personal family experience. I knew that his mother, French Canadian and Roman Catholic by birth, was very religious. He used to brag how he was an altar boy until his cassock was knee high, and Father finally had to make him quit.
For the most part, growing up Catholic was mostly a source of curiosity among our Protestant friends. This curiosity was no more pronounced than during Lent, when every weekday the Smith children would pray the rosary around mom and dad's bed. Just to be sure you understand the importance of this fact, Lent lasts 40 days; and we would have prayed the rosary at least 25 times each year together. Some might say that you learn a lot about each other, when you spend this much time praying together. Unfortunately I'm not certain that I learned anything about anyone during those half hour sessions. Another fact about Lent is that it starts when its still cold outside, but by the time it ends, the weather starts to become warm and the daylight continues long after dinner was over. Consequently, saying the rosary became more difficult as our friends played on the porch outside our parent's bedroom; while we were inside trying to recite the beads and the stations of the cross as quickly as we could. In those times where we would try to rush through too quickly, it would be dad who would intervene and get the pace back to normal.
Saying the rosary wasn't always a serious function. It was difficult to remain solemn when you had a terrible case of the "giggles." It was Ok to have this disorder as long as it wasn't your turn to lead one of the stations and the subsequent 10 Hail Mary's that followed. The "giggles" were contagious, as the person next to you would inevitably begin to muffle his or her face into the bedding. Sometimes all the kids would have this affliction, and dad would have to stop the recitations to scold us. Occasionally one of the neighborhood children would yell through the window, "Are you done yet?" Of course, this led to additional laughter.
I am not certain when we quit saying the rosary during Lent, or more specifically when I quit saying the rosary during Lent. Yet while I dreaded saying the rosary during my childhood years, it is one of the strongest memories I have today of our family.
Story by Terry Smith