Rite at Home

For the past 30 years, members of the Marquette Circle 521, Plymouth, of the Daughters of Isabella (D of I) have been attending a special event, on the second Tuesday of July.

Father Howard Johnson, chaplain of the group, comprised of members from throughout Scheboygan County, invites them to attend a 5 p.m. Mass, followed by a potluck dinner and Bingo at his town of Lyndon home on Lake Ellen, on that day.

Members may bring their spouses and/or guests and are asked to bring their favorite lawn chairs. Half of the members are requested to bring a donation for the Bingo prizes, while the rest bring a dish to pass.

“This Mass [for which Johnson is the celebrant] is held, rain or shine,” he said. “The Mass and Sacraments are part of the D of I’s spiritual goals. The members tell me they look forward to the Mass, because it’s something different.

“I give each member a sacramental anointing for health and strength and overcoming illness, during the Mass,” he added. “And I take Communion to each of them at their chairs.”

The special intentions of the Mass are offered for living and deceased members of the D of I’s Marquette Circle 521, particularly for those who died during the past year. For 2008-09, those members were: Carol Leider, Pat Benish and Frances Dwyer.

“How Great Thou Art,” “Amazing Grace,” “On Eagles’ Wings,” and “Peace is Flowing Like a River,” are among the hymns sung during the Mass.

Cecelia Schmitz joined the organization in July 1965 and has been at all of Johnson’s home Masses. She said she enjoys the camaraderie with her fellow members. “We wouldn’t be together during June or July otherwise,” Schmitz said, “because we don’t have meetings during those two months.”

Another member Judy Heimerl agreed. “I like the casual atmosphere of Father’s Mass,” she said, “and the camaraderie.”

Johnson was first appointed chaplain of the organization in 1958 during the time he served as assistant pastor of St. John the Baptist Parish, Plymouth (1957-60).

He left that position when he was transferred in 1960 to assume the role as chaplain of the School for Boys in Waukesha. However, in 1962, the School for Boys moved to the town of Mitchell, current location of the Kettle Moraine Correctional Institution, and in 1975, the facility became an adult correctional facility.

Meanwhile, Johnson spent a year 1963-64 in a Clinical Pastoral Education training program at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Washington, D.C. He then returned to the School for Boys in Plymouth and was reappointed as chaplain of the D of I Marquette Circle 521.

He served as chaplain of the School for Boys and at the Kettle Moraine Correctional Institution until his 1989 retirement. However, he retained he has remained as D of I chaplain.

It was in 1979 that he celebrated his 25th anniversary as a priest at SJB Church in Plymouth. “The D of I members helped with the meal for that celebration,” he recalled. “I wanted to thank them for that, so I invited them and the choir to a Mass and meal at the home where I have lived since 1970.”

The following year, he decided to make it an official event to have a home Mass each year for D of I members and their guests. “We used to meet outside, and some of the husbands of the students from the Kettle Moraine Correctional Institution that I as training as clinical pastoral educators would help me fry brats and chickens,” Johnson recalled.

“But we now have a potluck meal instead.