Parish celebrations call back former organist and ‘treasured’ items
ZIPPING through South Brisbane on a motorbike, John Feltoe stopped in at St Mary’s Catholic church to say a quick prayer before his study session.
“It was dry times in those days,” Dr Feltoe said of his 1947 days.
Produce trucks raced past the church, one of them dropping off an unwanted creature.
Not sure of what to do with the unwelcome snake, the young medical student knocked on the presbytery door for Fr Richard Thompson.
“He came from Bundaberg, you see, so he got a stick and he went at the snake,” Dr Feltoe said.
Fr Thompson was also the former editor of The Catholic Leader in 1929 until 1942 when he was asked to take over St Mary’s from Fr William Cashman.
It was also the same time Dr Feltoe began playing the organ at St Mary’s Church.
“I was born in 1929, christened there, had my first communion, confirmation, and I was taught how to play the organ by the former organist,” he said.
Dr Feltoe’s connection to St Mary’s Church, which celebrated its 150th anniversary last week, started with his mother.
“My mother lived at Jones St, in Highgate Hill, and they would come to St Mary’s for Mass,” Dr Feltoe said.
“She and a few other parishioners would be on their hands and knees to scrub the sanctuary.
“The priest at the time had boot polish on and it would leave black marks on the white marble floor.
“The altar boys weren’t allowed to wear shoes, they had to wear black slippers, but the only ones you got at the time were for girls and they had pompoms.
“So you took the pompoms off.
“I was on the altar about 1946.”
His mother and father were married at St Mary’s Church, and remained parishioners until his mother died in 1981.
Dr Feltoe’s mother was “fond” of the community’s first parish priest, Fr Frank Dorrigan, and inherited six blown glass, deep red drinking tumblers and three sherry glasses.
They were all engraved with either 1911 Reverend Dorrigan, of FC 1911.
“Mum treasured those until the day she died, and after she died, they came to me,” he said.
Last week, Dr Feltoe took those same glasses that once belonged to the church’s first pastor and put them into the hands of the community’s present parish priest, Fr Lam Vu following their 150th anniversary celebrations.
Dr Feltoe said he realised the “historical significance” of the glass items and happily offered them to Fr Vu, along with a photo of the 1935 Annual Holy Communion of the Holy Name Society.
The photo was taken on a basketball court, now the church’s car park.
Dr Feltoe said he would return to St Mary’s Church at the next historical celebration but for now was happy looking after his wife Berneice at their Everton Park home.
Fr Vu said it was not the church but people, like Dr Feltoe, who made up the parish’s history.
“The church reminds us of our past but the people make the history,” Fr Vu said.
“It was amazing to celebrate 150 years of the parish, and to remember how the parish first started and connect with them.”
More than 250 people gathered at St Mary’s for the anniversary Mass on Sunday August 16 followed by a food festival outside.
Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge presided at the celebrations, along with former parish priests Fr Ken Howell and Capuchin Friar Fernanto Pananghat.
With celebrations at an end, Fr Vu said St Mary’s church would close between August 24 and September 5 for restorations to the existing floor.
Fr Vu said the parish needed in excess of $150,000 in donations to continue future restorations to the church’s interior.
