When Joan Kashuba heard – during a telephone conversation earlier this summer – the plight of the nuns who once taught at Immaculate Conception School in Secaucus, she had no doubt she was going to help out.
She, like many residents of Secaucus, remembered the Sisters of Notre Dame with fondness, even though nearly all have retired to a convent in Wilton, Conn. or have been reassigned.
“We were told they were underfunded. So we tried to figure out what we could do to help,” Kashuba said. “We decided to do what we do best – put on a show.”
Kashuba and her longtime friend, Pat DeFerarri, were deeply involved in local theater over the years, and, indeed, were largely responsible for bringing back a community theater program to Secaucus in the 1990s.
Kashuba said she recently saw a performance of Nunsense at Jersey City State University and the idea began to form. One of the singers in this production, Lucille O’Donnell, had performed in that production and will be performing in a Secaucus benefit for the nuns.
The name of the show is “Nun Better,” said the director, Richard Start.
“This is a volunteer group of singers and actors who will portray some nuns and other religious figures, as well as choir members,” he said.
Start is the music director of St. Mary’s Church in Deal, N.J., and served as an organist in Bayonne for years, but he has also played a significant role in past Secaucus community theater performances – which was how Kashuba and DeFerarri knew how to get ahead.
“I was conducting something in New York City, and a director here brought me in for one of the local Secaucus events,” Start said.
The fundraising event will be a variety show that features numerous parodies and comic dialogue written by Terry Brown, a sixth grade teacher in the Howell School district. The show will also have some songs from popular movies.
“The music covers everything [including] things like The Sound of Music, Nunsense and Sister Act [and] solos and other religious songs including Ave Maria and How Great Thou Are,” Start said.
The hour-long program, which will be presented on Sunday, Sept. 21, will run twice, once at 2:30 p.m. and again at 6:30 p.m. Before each show there will be other forms of entertainment such as karaoke at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. This pre-show entertainment will also have cake and coffee available, as well as a sweepstakes. The show’s proceeds and sales will benefit the Sisters of Notre Dame.
“A lot of local businesses have donated gifts and services,” Start said. “So have the churches. Everything in the show is being donated: scenery, sound and costumes.”
Start said there will likely be a cast of 30 ranging in age from young to old.
“Some of the nuns will be here, and will help sell coffee and cake,” Start said.
Fond memories
For many of those who are taking part in the Sept. 21 fundraiser, the Sisters of Notre Dame, who taught for years at Immaculate Conception School, hold a particularly warm place in their hearts. For some of the senior citizens, the sisters taught their children and grandchildren. For some of those in the show, the sisters helped them overcome troubling and emotional times.
The Sisters of Notre Dame are usually educators, teaching at every level of the educational system as well as serving in other roles as chaplains, administrators, nurses, and social services. They can be found in classrooms, soup kitchens, retreat centers, shelters, universities, hospitals, courtrooms, nursing homes and hospices.
The order has a long history and are considered pioneers in the American Frontier, traveling across the American continent during the mid-1800s by stage coach and steamboat, educating children in orphanages, nurseries and vocational schools. They often dedicated themselves to establishing homes for girls working in factories.
Although some of the former nuns from Secaucus have retired, others that once worked here went on to significant additional careers elsewhere.
Moving on
Sister Helen Mary Dolan, who worked in Secaucus as an administrator, has since moved onto pastoral care program at the New York Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn, where she carries on the tradition of her own by providing comfort to patients there.
Jody Greene and Gloria Capone, volunteers for the fundraiser, said they each owe the sisters for work they did in Secaucus.
“I remember Sister Christina,” said Greene. “She helped so many people. She helped comfort me for three years after my mom died.”
Sister Christina ran the Lazarus Bereavement Group meetings during her stay in Secaucus. It was a group that reached out to those who experienced the pain and loss of a loved one through death.
“They make you feel apart of them,” Greene said. “They are so giving. I actually didn’t want to end my bereavement. I know that sounds terrible. But we had become that close.”
“She is still doing the same kind of work,” Capone said, “but she’s up in Watertown Connecticut now.”
The sisters need money to continue carrying on their good works.
Capone keeps in touch with the sisters. She calls them often, and sometimes sees them.
“We call them and see them and sometimes, then they come to visit,” she said.
Capone and Greene are not working in the show, but behind the scenes as part of the business aspect. Both women are long time parishioners at Immaculate Conception Church.
These women remember the small details of church going, like one priest’s lectures on not putting pennies in the collection basket. Although Greene remembers bereavement fondly, Capone said the main job of the nuns while in Secaucus was to teach. Bereavement occurred during the extra hours in the evening.
“That’s what their name means, SSND, School Sisters of Notre Dame,” Capone said
Capone remembered the nuns were good for discipline.
“That’s a word you don’t hear any more,” she said. “I had three boys. They needed discipline sometimes.”
“Most of the nuns moved on a few years ago,” Greene said, adding that Sister Henry was principal for many years and retired to Connecticut. A group of women are going to go up and see them, perhaps for the October fest, Capone said
Doris Doyle said she keeps in touch with many of the nuns and recalls the good works they did in Secaucus. “They taught my children,” she said.
Doyle, in fact, felt so strongly about one sister that she named her daughter after the nun. In another memory, Doyle recalled when her daughter first started school she was just on the cusp of the age limit, and Doyle was not certain whether to admit the girl or not. The nun said: I’ll let you know in two weeks.
“Everything turned out fine,” she said.
The Sept. 21 fundraiser performances will be held at the Secaucus Senior Center at Irving Place and Centre Avenue. People can obtain tickets by calling Capone at (201) 867-4653.