Our Father Who Art In EG

by | Mar 7, 2023

Above: The former Our Lady of Mercy Church on Main Street back in the day.
Joe Coleman died March 5, 2023. I am dumbstruck with the news – I had just talked to him the day before. He had wanted me to write his obituary, but for all of you of the “Barn era,” this will be better than an obituary and will bring him to life for you once again. He left his mark on all of us. May God bless and rest him. May he be at peace. Dominus vobiscum. Et cum spiritu tuo. – BM

Growing up Catholic is quite an experience at any rate. I make fun of my Episcopal friends and friends of other religious persuasions, along with my Catholic experiences, but, when you really study it, growing up on the knee of Mother Church is an experience beyond experiences. If she gets you before age seven, she has you for life. Even if you quit going to Mass it seems that something from those Catechism days pops up in your life again and again.

Most Catholics who have varying opinions of this experience, do, though, have one thing in common. They usually hold a mental picture, or a real one, of their favorite priest. Usually it is someone like Bing Crosby in “Going My Way” or Spencer Tracy in “Boys Town.”

Recently, though, the Church and its priests have come under attack and the memories of current day Catholics and some from parishes with a darker side in their past, may not be so good. They should have let priests marry and that would have gone part way to solving some of the problems. That subject gave root to one of my greatest lines and will be revisited later in this piece.

We were lucky in East Greenwich in those mockingbird years of the mid-fifties. We had Father Joe and The Barn!

Neither will ever be forgotten, even though they are now gone from our midst, but not our minds or memories. They will always have an apartment there to be visited from time to time. The visits will always be good.

This column is dedicated to The Barn Gang: To Lu and Flute, Deacon and Bubba Joe, Big Hop & Lil’ Hop, Young Gun and Bird and especially to Karen & Gail, Linda, Elaine, Claire and Sandy, so that they may never forget. . . .

Father Joe came on the scene in 1955. He was your not so typical, typical Irish-Catholic priest, stepping in at over 6 feet and 260 lbs. He was imposing, to say the least, and had an impact immediately, if not sooner. He got our attention and he got it fast. He also gave us memories. Memories that still last.

There are all kinds of priests. In those days, it seemed, most of them were content to do their jobs. Some were overly religious. Some were more like regular guys. Some were teetotalers. Some liked their booze, uh, holy wine. And some were bean counters. Most stuck to the dogma of our religion, and those bothered me the most. They would stick by the book. Even when the book was wrong.

In general, they were all looked at as stern, unbending, and not really in touch with the people. Especially, the pastors.

When Father Joe came on the scene all that changed. He touched our lives, and us, in more ways then one. But, NO, not THAT one!

He was a People’s Priest, the likes of which we have not seen since.

The Mass became his particular vehicle. We had never seen a priest stop in the middle of the mystical Latin service and threaten parishioners who were trying to leave Mass early so they could get a head start on the coffee and donuts down at the local cafe, or get early tee time at their country club.

He also left the pulpit and roamed the aisles giving us the gospel, or what for, or whatever, or whatever was needed. A little of that old, good-time, roll up your sleeves religion.

He seemed to be everywhere. He showed up at people’s houses to visit the sick, or just visit, or maybe to sample some of Mom’s coffee and apple pie. He came to the ball games and even played softball in the local town league. He went to wakes and funerals and dinners. You might look up from reading a magazine at the local variety store, and he’s be standing there. He was everywhere. That magazine had better have been about sports or Norman Rockwell or else!

It was awesome as kids to watch him play softball, He played for OLM in the local league. To some of the parishioners, this was sacrilegious. But we kids loved it. We had never seen a Catholic priest play softball before, and this guy not only played, he knocked the stuffing out of the ball.

Ironically, many of his home runs landed across the street outside the ballpark and ended up in the Protestant cemetery. One time, in winning a bet from us kids, he  got down on his knees at the Little League Park and knocked balls over the flagpole.

Sort of ” praying home runs ” so to speak.

He was a hands on priest, even if that meant putting hands on Deacon and TabCat, who had the audacity (and stupidity) to get into a fistfight during the middle of our CYO meeting one Monday evening.

He rolled up his sleeves and gave us a practical look at religion. One we have never seen, before or since. Whether it was a physical lesson, like the one Deacon and TabCat got, or a practical one in the form of a lecture, or just an old fashioned talk, Father Joe usually got the job done and in a way that stuck in your mind, your soul or your body!

“Don’t get the Big Guy mad” sort of became our password.

Yet, we knew he cared. In more ways than one. Today, when priests go on vacation, be it normal or the “collars off” type, they usually go alone, with another priest or with family, or maybe someone else. When Father Joe went, he took us!

He had a farmhouse at his disposal in New Hampshire near Echo Lake. He would fill his station wagon with gas and food, and then with the altar boys, basketball team or the baseball team. Then off we’d go for a week of fun at a place that was like our own private camp.

As I said the farm was near Echo Lake, The Flume, The Tramway and the Old Man in the Mountain at Franconia Notch. We had a ball and those trips made an indelible impression on many a boy, most of whom had never been out of East Greenwich, never mind Rhode Island.

We had apple fights, milked cows, dared one another to touch the electric fence, swam in freezing cold lakes, met the tenants, who were Hungarian Freedom Fighters who had stared down and shot at the Russians, and at night rolled up in our blankets and sleeping bags filled with a day of adventure and happenings. We slept well and hard.

We lived more of this life that we had come to know and love. It was idyllic. It was fulfilling. It opened our eyes to other ways.

One time Father Joe took six of us down to Philadelphia to appear on American Bandstand with Dick Clark. We had won dance contests at the church-sponsored dance and the trip was our prize. It was his treat to us for winning. We saw things that, once again, were new to us. Guys putting on rouge and lipstick so they would look better on TV. How different the real thing was to what we saw on TV. Grafitti on the records you saw behind Dick Clark’s podium on the show. The smallness of the set.

But, we were up close and personal with Dick Clark. We danced our time away. We had a hell of a time, thanks to a heaven of a priest.

Still, the best thing Father Joe gave us, aside from the present of himself and his time, was The Barn!

It was just an old horse barn located behind OLM when that church was on Main Street. If it were here today it would be approximately where Back to Basics is.

Word had it that the local teenagers needed a place to go in East G. A place to occupy them and keep them off the streets.

Father Joe had an idea and he got John and Jerry and Joe and a bunch of the male parishioners to turn that idea into a reality. The men donated time, tools and physical effort and they made a priest’s vision come to life!

For us it was our own magical, mystical, mystery show.

What had once been an old horse and buggy barn got converted, just like water to wine, from a dusty, cluttered, unused edifice into The Barn, a monument in our memory

What had once been an old horse and buggy barn got converted, just like water to wine, from a dusty, cluttered, unused edifice into The Barn, a monument in our memory!

After the workmen were done with it (all volunteer labor), it held a dance floor with jukebox, a card playing area, a ping pong room, a pool room, a games room and a TV room. Outside there were two basketball courts, one full court and the other half court.

When Father Joe put his mind to it, he got ‘er done, as they say today. A lot of equipment was donated. After all, who could refuse a priest? Especially one, who stood 6 feet and 260 pounds. No one! Kind of like a religious Godfather, if you get my drift.

He made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. And, they didn’t!

He was not Bing Crosby (a dark figure in real life) or Spencer Tracy, or Barry Fitzgerald, but he was a lot more real. We never wailed that plaintive cry, especially the one I heard from my own kids that there was “nothing to do in East Greenwich. It’s so boring!”

We had a lot to do and a place to do it in! If the streets, the cove, the woods or the farm didn’t provide us with diversions, there was always The Barn!

Father Joe left EG in 1962. He, like others, eventually left the priesthood (their loss). He married and is living happily somewhere on the planet. As a priest he knew all the answers (as a marriage counselor). Now he is finding out the questions. He gave me cause to use two of my best, and in one case, prophetic lines:

He wanted me to be a priest. I answered, “Father, if they let priests marry, I’ll be a priest tomorrow.” (Uttered  in 1959.)

On asking me about marriage I told him: “Father, when you were 33 you knew all the answers. Now you don’t even know the questions.” Of course, he loved me for my wit and wisdom. He, and the church, should have listened.

The Barn burned down in 1961. One of the guys bunked school, snuck into the Barn and fell asleep in the TV lounge with a cigarette burning “tween his fingers.”

He survived. The Barn did not.

It was never rebuilt.

Now it only exists in those corners of our mind that are reserved for good memories, good times and good friends. Trips down shadowy mental hallways to those bright spots that bring us joy and pleasure.

Even that is better than never having it at all.

I do hope, good friends, that this tale has helped you to open that doorway that opens on that hallway, that leads to the corners of your mind when the times were good, as were your friends.

With Much Love and In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,

Bruce

Bruce Mastracchio grew up in East Greenwich, where he experienced those 28-hour days and 8-day weeks that contained the magic that made his hometown so special. Included in all that were the numerous characters that added color to the local life and produced many of Bruce’s remarkable stories.

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Elaine
Elaine
December 31, 2017 3:45 pm

Great article! Maybe it’s your turn, Bruce, to have the trophy if you can name the song that we won the jitterbug contest to that night many years ago.

Ruth Smith Zingarelli
Ruth Smith Zingarelli
December 31, 2017 7:47 pm

I enjoyed your article very much.I am from Wickford and East Greenwich. I graduated from EGHS in 1949. I have lived in Georgia for over 50 years but come to R.I. at least once a year.

Bruce R. Mastracchio
Bruce R. Mastracchio
January 2, 2018 8:44 am

Elaine,
It was STAGGER LEE . You don’t have to give me the trophy.
I have it ! And, always will, in my mind at least.

The night was dark. And, the moon was yellow. And, the leaves
came tumbling down !

Bruce

Nancy Birt Pratt
March 13, 2023 11:04 pm

What a wonderful tribute to a very special priest! I had the good fortune of knowing him at Holy Name Parish in Providence when he ran the CYO.May he rest in peace after such an active compassionate life!

Ka Kelly
Ka Kelly
March 14, 2023 2:24 pm

I remember Fr. Coleman from Holy Name Church. In 1963 I was coaching the girls basketball cheerleading squad and planning my wedding at the same time. Father set up a series of marriage instructions for me. The first night when I arrived I found a Police Scanner on his desk, as he was chaplain for the Providence Fire and Police Departments. Many of our sessions were interrupted when he got a call but he would tell me “Kathy, read chapters 2-5 and I’ll be back as soon as I can!” Father Coleman definitely was one in a million! RIP

Judi Sheldon
Judi Sheldon
January 4, 2020 4:57 am

I grew up in Frenchtown and East G. The influence of Father Joe covered even us Protestant kids in the Methodist church down the street, the only other church on Main Street. I remember my Catholic friends in school talking about him in fear but with much love. Oh to have that town back. A town where we knew each other and lived each other and no matter what we were proud to cone from East G and to know Father Joe.

Barbara Payne
Barbara Payne
March 10, 2023 2:17 pm
Reply to  Judi Sheldon

Barbara,

I did not grow up in E. G. , but this beautiful story touched my heart so much.
I grew up in Warwick ( Catholic ).
Can some one tell me what happened to such a beautiful church ?

Reminded me of the church I grew up in. Saint Rita’s.

Thank you so much for sharing

Bob Spencer
Bob Spencer
March 13, 2023 9:03 am
Reply to  Judi Sheldon

Bruce that is a great tribute to a great man. I also remember football on the side of the church. He would always join in if he was not busy. He was everywhere. I too went to New Hampshire to the farm. What a great time. Dinners in Newport after Sunday masses were over. I could go on and on. Thank you Joe (Father) 🙏 RIP 🙏.

Mathias
Mathias
March 10, 2023 8:43 am

A great article about a truly wonderful man!

Rick Fava
Rick Fava
March 10, 2023 9:15 am

A great tribute Bruce…..
Father Coleman was a special man.
I will always remember him as bringing joy, happiness, and comfort to people in need.
It was always special when he came to visit our class at OLM.
Even more so when he joined in the ball games at recess.
May he R.I.P.

Alan Clarke
Alan Clarke
March 10, 2023 9:18 am

Great, Bruce. One of your best! As a Protestant kid growing up in the very shadow of that old wooden church, I was often mystified by those dressed in black in the area. Felt different. Well, of course, we were. But I worked at the Kent Pharmacy, Gino’s, behind the soda fountain, and Father Coleman would come in and have a coffee or a cabinet, I forget which, and if it was slow, we’d have some wonderful conversations. He humanized that mysterious church for me and it drew me closer to the classmates and friends I had who were of the Catholic faith. He was a very human man, warm, caring, living the life he had chosen. I respected him then and am sorry he has passed on. I hope his life after he left town was everything he’d hoped to have. I never was in The Barn but I sure remember how envious I was that you guys had it.

Terry Bergeron
Terry Bergeron
March 10, 2023 9:35 am

I will never forget Father Joe. Your memoir captures his spirit and spirituality, and the impact he had on me and my friends. Our trips keep coming back to mind. You suggested that we give him a call in NH a few months ago, Bruce, and I did. He told me at the time that he’d had many calls from his “kids” in EG, and knew that you were behind it. I told him I would visit him in NH. (My cousin lives in his town). He was pleased but it was not to be.

Ray Giornelli
Ray Giornelli
March 10, 2023 10:38 am

Here it is 2023 and this article is still wonderfull. I left EG in the mid ’50s but still have fond memories of growing up in that idyllic town. Can’t forget the “barn” before its renewal and the memories from OLM.

Jack Cleary
Jack Cleary
March 10, 2023 11:00 am

Father Joe will be greatly missed. He was truly a great guy and priest and changed my life forever.

Don rice
Don rice
March 10, 2023 3:10 pm

Father Joe was such a free and easy person that even I—not only a non-Catholic, but a thoroughly irreligious kid—found him quite approachable. In the mid-fifties, the First Baptist Church built the current Church House on Peirce Street. True descendants of Roger Williams, they decided to open it on Friday nights as a sort of canteen where high school kids of any (or no) denomination could gather for sock hops, play ping-pong, and the like, there being nothing else for us to do but hang out on Main Street. All went well for a couple of weeks, but then all the Catholic kids disappeared. When asked why, they said they’d been ordered not to participate. This didn’t seem fair.

One night while passing the Rectory on Main Street I impulsively knocked on the front door, and Father Joe himself answered. I told him I had a question to ask, and he kindly invited me in. My question, of course, was why Catholic kids couldn’t participate in the canteen. It wasn’t as if it were some kind of religious exercise. He agreed, but noted that the building did have a cross on it. So what? He hemmed and hawed and finally admitted that if it were up to him, he probably would have overlooked it, but the decision was made at a higher level. I knew very little about Our Lady of Mercy church, but I seem to recall that Father Joe was second in command. His boss, I believe, was Father Brady (and I could be wrong about that). He also admitted it wasn’t fair that the Catholic kids had no place to go and that he was working on something to rectify that situation—thus “The Barn” that Bruce so fondly remembers.

Had it not been for the local Baptists, that might never have come about.

Mary Lynn Reisert
Mary Lynn Reisert
March 10, 2023 9:05 pm

He was a large part of my teen years, even though I never entered the barn. My parents were rather strict but CCD was a large part of my social life. I remember the parties and dances we had…also a ski trip to NH. Years later when I was married and living in Maine I got a call from Fr. Joe. He was working with seminarians and bringing a group to a retreat in Maine. He asked if my husband and I would talk to them about our life with the church as married couple with children. Of course we did. . After he left the church we stayed in touch. I still have the wonderful Christmas letters he sent.. He was a light for many teens in EG during his time here.

sandra denofio didonato
sandra denofio didonato
March 11, 2023 7:37 pm

Bruce, thank you for the fond memories of the 50’s with Father Joe and “The Barn.” So very sorry to hear of Father Joe’s passing. I have thought about him often over the years and all of us who grew up in EG. My cousins Linda, Elaine, and Claire and some of our friends Donny, Stan, Bob, John, Joe, Victor, George, Karen, Gail, Bruce, and Carol are a few of the ones I remember. There are many others but I can’t remember all of their names (senior moment). It’s sad there isn’t a Father Joe for the kids in this world today.

Rest in peace, Father Joe and pray for us.

Bruce, thank you again for taking us back in time. How about a “Barn Reunion” this summer? I would love to see everyone.

Tom Burke
Tom Burke
March 14, 2023 11:13 pm

RIP Father Joe, you will always be a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. Thank you for your influence and guidance in my Faith.
I still have fond memories of Holy Name CYO events, being one of your altar servers and of course the day, still 15, you told me to drive your station wagon back to the rectory….
You were a Great priest, thank you.
Major (Retired) Tom Burke, Creston MT

Joan M Chadwell
Joan M Chadwell
April 1, 2023 8:07 pm

Thanks Bruce. You brought back many memories. Well written and Father Joe would be so very proud of the time effort and memories you shared with others through this “story.” I probably should not call this a story – it is a wonderful tribute to a wonderful person. Keep those memories alive.

Bruce
Bruce
November 17, 2023 3:39 pm

To Barbara Payne – The Barn burned. The old OLM church was torn down for a small shopping plaza.
Sandy – I will talk to someone. Maybe we will have a Barn Gang reunion. Stay in touch.
To Don – EG News has never printed my “Beauty is Only Skin Deep (Title ?) but it was about a Catholic boy I knew who went to several events at that canteen.

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