From the ‘catacombs’ to a pastorate, St. Joseph celebrates 75 years

When St. Joseph in Hagerstown was founded in 1951, the congregation met in a former nursing home with a long hallway separating two rooms. Mary L. Hellane, 78, remembers everyone rushing on Sundays to get a seat in the left-hand room where you could “see and hear the priest,” as you were “pretty much on your own” on the right side.

She also remembers Mass being interrupted by fire calls when St. Joseph met at the volunteer fire department and the joke was that the congregation met “in the catacombs” when it was celebrated in the basement of the current rectory as one wall was all rocks.

“It was such a celebration,” Hellane said, when the congregation came together for its first Mass in its current structure on Christmas Eve in 1961. “Only a handful of parishioners, 25 to 30 families, had started this thing and it had grown and grown.”

Today, as St. Joseph celebrates its 75th anniversary, the church operates as a worship site within The Catholic Parishes of Southwest Washington County, a pastorate which also includes St. Augustine in Williamsport and St. James in Boonsboro.

St. Joseph is located in an area known as “Halfway” – a community half way between Hagerstown and Williamsport. The clergy once served as full-time chaplains at the Hagerstown Correctional Complex.

In recent years, St. Joseph has welcomed a large Hispanic community population, with Father David Ray, associate pastor, celebrating Masses in Spanish on Wednesdays and Sundays.

“That’s been a new element in their pastoral life and experience,” Monsignor Bruce Jarboe, former pastor, said of the growing Hispanic community. He commended the parish for its willingness “to do the hard work and try to integrate with that population that is new to them.”

He also noted that St. Joseph, along with St. James and St. Augustine, has been willing “over the last eight nine years, to work through the process of coming into a pastorate relationship.”

“That is not an easy thing to do,” Monsignor Jarboe said.

The Catholic Daughters of the Americas meet monthly at St. Joseph for prayer, fellowship and friendship. The Pastorate Rosary Makers meet the second Sunday of the month from September through May to make rosaries for the missions, first communicants, confirmation, RCIA, hospitals and more.

A long tradition at St. Joseph is the fall yard sale. Now known as the Pastorate Yard Sale, it is scheduled for Oct. 9 and 10.

Father George Gannon became the pastor of the pastorate Aug. 1.

Email Katie V. Jones at kjones@CatholicReview.org

From the ‘catacombs’ to a pastorate, St. Joseph celebrates 75 years

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