One night, my four children and I were sitting on the basement stairs in my parent’s home in Forest City, Iowa. Typical of the region, fierce spring winds howled around the house. I had gotten my sleepy little ones up in the wee hours of the morning so we could be near the cellar in case of a tornado. My father was already up. Since he had been diagnosed with blood and bone cancer, he often had wakeful nights. As the six of us sat there listening to the wind shaking the windowpanes, my dad started reminiscing about his first Communion and confirmation. My seven-year-old daughter, Gemma, would be making her first Communion in a couple of weeks, and it must have made him think of his own. I marveled at the story because I never remembered hearing it before.
My dad recalled how on the way to his first confession in 1946, his parents took him to buy a Rat Terrier puppy for a first Communion gift. Listening to him tell the story, I could imagine my dad as a little six-year-old boy with just his dark head peeping out from a long, oversized dress coat. I could see him choosing that puppy with the black-and-white spots. Dad told us, “It was freezing that day, so I put Peewee in my big pocket to keep her warm, and she went into the confessional with me.” That little puppy wasn’t the end of the story; she made it possible for my dad to do something generous for his parish priest, Monsignor Hradecky.
A week before my dad’s confirmation, on June 25, 1951, a devastating tornado hit the small, Czech town of Duncan, Iowa. My dad’s family lived on a farm in rural Duncan. My dad remembered how that tornado had torn through his town and dumped water and mud from a 10-acre pond onto the demolished houses. Still marveling at the memory, he told us how the church, St. Wenceslaus, was destroyed, but the sanctuary was left untouched and the flame from the sanctuary candle continued to burn.
The following Sunday after the tornado hit, Bishop Binz came to confirm my dad and the other children of the parish, and a tent was set up in place of the church. My dad noticed that Monsignor Hradecky wasn’t wearing his biretta with the red pom-pom. (A biretta is three-peaked hat that was worn by the priest during the Latin Mass, and red signified monsignor). Though just a 12-year-old, my dad demonstrated generosity and maturity by taking the money he earned from selling a litter of Peewee’s puppies and buying Monsignor Hradecky a $40 biretta to replace the one lost in the tornado. Hearing his story reminded me how receiving the sacraments bind Catholics past, present, and future together. We came to Iowa thinking that my dad was near his end of his life. We got permission from our parish priest in Idaho to have Gemma’s first Communion at my dad’s church, Our Lady of Ransom Oratory, in Guckeen, Minnesota. This way my dad could be a part of one of the most monumental days in the spiritual life of a Catholic. I am happy to say that though it has been a rocky road for him, he is still with us, and he looking forward to another grandchild’s first Communion this year.
Postscript: My father didn’t make it to see his third granddaughter make her first Communion. He died on March 11th, 2014. He put up a good fight against the cancer, living almost 14 months after the diagnosis. Just days before he died, I read this story to him. He cried tears of joy because I’d written about him; he had seen many articles about my mom, but none about him until now. It’s a good thing I read him the story and showed him the layout before it was published because his copy of Catholic Digest, which included this tale from his youth, arrived in the mail a few days after he died. May God rest his eternal soul.
© 2014, Lori Hadacek Chaplin. First published in Catholic Digest in Spring of 2014.