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SPRINGFIELD — Going back to Chuck Smith's great-great grandfather, Ray McCormick, who laid bricks for St. Joseph's Church, "we have actually had six generations of my family in St. Joe's."

Born behind where the school sits now, Smith has been a member of the parish for all of his 66 years.

In the early days, "St. Joe's was a community," he said.

"All the Catholic Schools had their churches and were noted for something. St. Bernard was the Dutch or German. We were the Hill Irish. St. Ray's was the silk stocking Irish, your most affluent," he said.

In the days of his youth, "you had the Irish, the Italians, the blacks, the Germans — what would be called inner city today" in what was "a pleasant neighborhood."

And Fr. Elmer Bernard, whom Smith said was "pretty much an icon," was "very much a part of the neighborhood," Smith said.

Things have changed, of course.

Nuns have given way to lay teachers, schools have consolidated, the world has become more transient.

As a result, "my loyalty is a little bit different," Smith said. "Now I feel very comfortable going to any Catholic Church. Actually any church can be part of the community," he said.

But St. Joe's is still his place, he said.

And it has been for generations.

Running with the Irish

Growing up in the Depression, at a time "when it was cheaper to move every month than to pay rent," he said, Howard O. "Hobby" Hohn arrived at St. Joseph's as a neighborhood kid.

"I think I was 14," Hohn said.

"I had been to Trinity Lutheran down on Sunset Avenue, and I got to running around with them Irish."

The kids from the Irish Hill neighborhood included the Ryans — "Dude," Bob and Timothy — and Gene Shay.

"So I went to church with them, and they introduced me to Fr. Bernard," Hohn said.

Hohn said he appreciated Fr. Kennedy for taking him skating and on other outings, but Fr. Bernard "could walk on water, as far as I am concerned," Hohn said.

"He was about the most fair man I ever saw. And, of course, things were tough back then, you know, we're talking about '37, '38."

"At the time I went there, we never paid any tuition."

Fr. Bernard could give him trouble at times.

"I remember one time, we were serving Mass. He used to tell me stay out of the wine."

And when Hohn said if he'd had one of Bernard's collars he could be a millionaire, the priest good naturedly shot back: "Like heck, you'd be in the penitentiary."

A loyalty to St. Joe's

Liturgy commission, school board, Bible Study, teacher aide, Christian Family Movement — name something to be involved in at St. Joseph's Church in the past 40 years and Melanie Oliver likely has been part of it.

"I had grown up at St. Raphael's, and when I married, my husband was a member of St. Joseph," she said.

But "the fact that there was always a way to be involved for myself and for my family" quickly helped her make the transition to a new parish.

And through that involvement she found something even more important: "The spiritual strength I felt I received from the congregation and the ministers."

How does a parish sustain that?

"I think people help one another, and they have certain expectations and goals for the parish," Oliver said. "I think if they are encouraged to maintain that, that's what helps."

So do improvements at the church, such as the addition of a slate roof in the past year with the help of the Turner Foundation.

Such improvements are "encouraging," she said, because the physical state of the church gives people a sense of how the church is doing.

But beneath that roof, Oliver said, St. Joseph's has a solid foundation of dedicated parishioners.

Despite many people moving into new homes over the years, she said, "there's a huge number of people who have maintained that loyalty to the parish."

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0368 or tstafford@coxohio.com

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