By A.M. Kelley
Catholic Herald correspondent

Park Falls CCW is older than the diocese

PARK FALLS -- Some think there may be members of a woman's club at St. Anthony de Padua, Park Falls, old enough to know Moses. It's true that there are more than a few gray hairs at Parish Council of Catholic Women meetings. But according to one of its younger members, Geraldine Schmidt, 78, all joking aside, the council really does predate the 100-year-old Diocese of Superior by a few months.

The parish was founded in 1904 and women in Park Falls began meeting the same year.

The number of council members has dwindled over the years. Now only a dozen or more show up for meetings but those few hale and hearty are still racking up accomplishments.

When asked about the role of these women in the church, their pastor Fr. Jim Jackson summed it up neatly.

"What do the women do?" he said. "What needs to be done?"

In other words, you name it, they do it.

Their resumes include cleaning the church and cooking funeral dinners. They've supported the parish's school, and sewed baptismal gowns and quilts for women's shelters, health departments and hospitals. When parishioners were hard at work in the rectory's top-to-bottom remodeling project a few years ago, Jackson and the Knights of Columbus mobilized carpenters and carpet layers but Schmidt said she and other women were on the job too.

"Whole meals were brought in for the crews," she said. "We helped pulled off plaster, tiles and pushed the broom. Then there were Rosie's donuts."

Rosie is council member Rose Schmidt and has always lived in Park Falls, never farther than two miles of her birthplace. She's 93 years old and has attended council meetings for 38 years since a tragedy spurred her into joining. In 1967 when her husband had been dead for two years a fire destroyed her family's home. Two of her five children were grown, but Schmidt still had three to care for, ages 8, 10 and 14.

"We lived out of town," she said. "There was no city water and when the DNR tried to bring water, their tanks were frozen."

The council came to the aid of the family.

"The women took a collection," Schmidt said. "And they had a shower for us."

That connection led her to become part of the group.

"They are a great bunch," she said, then paused and added, "we are."

Member Catherine Wagner, 81, joined about 1940. She too has always lived in Park Falls. Her German immigrant parents were dairy farmers and one of her brothers still owns the family spread. She attended St. Anthony as a child and her mother, Kathryn, was an early member of the women's council. Even with these sturdy roots in Park Falls, when Wagner's mother encouraged her to join the women's group, she declined at first.

"I didn't feel like I belonged," Wagner said.

She felt like an outsider because she was childless for the first 10 years of her marriage. The women's gatherings were important social hours and respites from home chores, especially child-rearing. Attending a church meeting was a rare chance for a woman to leave the house and her children behind and be with other women.

"It's a different world now," Wagner said. "Parents both have to work."

She eventually joined the council and she also had children.

"When my children were growing up, just to get out, go to (women's council), was a treat," she said.

Widowed now, Wagner is active in the council. She runs the "knit booth" at the church's bazaar and this year proudly reported that it took in more than $600.

Another longtime member is Tess Mader, 90.

"I've been cleaning the church forever," she said.

An accomplished seamstress, she has also produced hundreds of quilts and is still at it.

"She's working as hard as ever," Geraldine Schmidt said.

The council ranks are thinning and changing but so is Park Falls.

"The town has lost some of its zoom," said 89-year-old member Mary Panke.

Park Falls is in northern Price County and the north fork of the Flambeau River runs through it. The city, which has a population of less than 2,500, is about 50 miles south of Ashland on Hwy. 13 and 100 miles northwest of Wausau.

Summer tourists come to Park Falls, especially the ATV crowd, Jackson said. It's a good area for hunting and is dubbed the "ruffed grouse capital of the world." The timber industry has been its economic lifeblood and Fraser Paper Company the big employer. But since it sold out to Smart Papers last February the future is shaky. The new company downsized and many lost their jobs. Others who returned to work found their salaries reduced.

There's a hospital, nursing home and some manufacturing jobs to sustain residents in Park Falls. While never a big city, it has had sturdier days, just like the parish.

In addition to St. Anthony, Jackson also serves as pastor of two other parishes: Immaculate Conception, Butternut, a little north of Park Falls, and St. Francis of Assisi, Fifield, just to the south.

St. Anthony now has 550 members. Its women's council used to have as many as 100 active members. Now it's a gathering of seniors, albeit very busy ones.

"Younger women are working. So many things demand their time." Jackson said.

At 94, Louise Warren is the eldest of the council.

When Geraldine Schmidt said, "We're older than the diocese," Warren didn't bother with the math.

"I just do the best I can every day," she said. "I've had a great life. I have a lot of aches and pains but it's worth it."

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© Superior Catholic Herald, 2005