[Announce] Fw: Alice Zarrella, RIP, Another CW Pioneer, Passes to her Glory!

[Robert Waldrop]

> From: Rosalie Riegle <riegle(at)svsu.edu> 
> Replace (at) with @
> Date: Mar 22, 2007 5:58 PM
>
> Alice Zarrella, Another Catholic Worker Pioneer, 
> Passes to her Glory
>
> They're almost all gone now, those passionate 
> men and women who joined
> with Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in the early 
> years of the Catholic
> Worker.  Mary Alice Zarrella died peacefully at 
> Sacred Heart Village
> in Louisville, Kentucky on Wednesday, March 21, 
> just a week short of
> the anniversary of the death of her husband, 
> Joe.  She is survived by
> four daughters, five grandchildren, and four 
> great-granddaughters,
> with one on the way. The funeral Mass will be 
> Saturday at 10:00 at St.
> Paul's church in her home town of Tell City, 
> Indiana.
>
>
> Alice was born Mary Alice Lautner on July 16, 
> 1914.  She heard about
> the Catholic Worker from her priest brother who 
> sent her a copy of The
> Catholic Worker and said, "This is what you're 
> looking for." Alice was
> working as a bookkeeper and earning about $7.00 
> a week.  Every week
> she'd send a dollar to the Worker, sometimes 
> two.
>
>
> Joe remembered:
> "On Monday morning, Jerry [Griffin] and I would 
> go for the mail.  We
> wouldn't have any money to start the week, but 
> one of us would say,
> 'Well, at least we'll get a dollar today from 
> the Lautner girl.' Every
> Monday we got a dollar from Alice."
>
>
> Alice said:
> "I had the same ideas out here as they had in 
> New York.  And then I
> found them published!  When Dorothy came to St. 
> Meinrad's [ near her
> home], the monks called me and asked if I wanted 
> to meet her.  Of
> course I did!  That's how we got together. 
> Dorothy even visited my
> family to show them that it was a respectable 
> place.   And then she...
> I have this rare distinction that she asked me 
> to come to New York.
> Most people who came just showed up, but she 
> asked me, and Peter asked
> me.  "When is she coming?" Peter would ask.  (He 
> always referred to me
> as "she.")
>
>
> Finally, they got Alice.  She sailed into the 
> office on Mott Street
> one day, wearing a big, wide-brimmed hat.  "So 
> that's Mary Alice
> Lautner!" Joe exclaimed and the romance started. 
> It was not without
> its ups and downs, however.  Alice tells a story 
> of how Joe loved the
> Mets; one day someone gave him two tickets to a 
> game.  He asked
> several people to go-probably men around the 
> Worker-but no one said
> yes. So he was complaining that he'd asked 
> everyone and no one could
> go.
>
>
> Alice piped up:"Well, I don't guess you're 
> really asked everyone.  You
> haven't asked me!
>
>
> "You mean, you would want to go?"
>
>
> "Well, not now, I don't!"
>
>
> But of course they went and soon afterwards, 
> became a couple.
>
>
> In our interview, Alice remembered Peter Maurin 
> with particular
> fondness.  She also worked closely with Arthur 
> Sheehan on the
> Association for Conscientious Objectors.
>
>
> "The peace movement always meant a lot to 
> me--the idea of
> non-violence and the personal responsibility. 
> Everybody would write in
> and be registered with the Association. We kept 
> files and I helped
> Arthur with that. I think the Catholic Worker's 
> stand on conscientious
> objection helped it to be accepted for 
> Catholics."
>
>
> Alice didn't become an acolyte of Dorothy Day; 
> in fact, she found
> Dorothy rather distant.  Later, when she learned 
> of Dorothy's early
> life, she realized that Dorothy had been worried 
> about the women who
> came to the Worker, worried about their living 
> in the same house with
> men.  Alice laughed and said, "We were so 
> innocent.  And too stupid to
> be tempted!"
>
>
> Of course romance abounded, with or without Meg 
> games and Dorothy
> worrying,  and Joe and Alice were married in 
> June of 1942, moving to a
> basement apartment on Mulberry Street before 
> going back to the Midwest
> because they didn't want to raise a family in 
> the big city.  But they
> remained Catholic Worker in their lifestyle and 
> their affections for
> over fifty years.  Joe explained:
>
>
> "Miss Day felt each family should try to put 
> into practice the ideals
> of the CW in a home of its own.  We thought of 
> these homes as cells
> and considered them very much part of the CW 
> itself."
>
>
> Joe and Alice's liberal ideas didn't always set 
> well with their more
> conservative neighbors. Mary Alice told me:
>
>
> "Even though we're different, we've been 
> consistently different, so
> they accept it.  They don't approve but they 
> just think, "Well, that's
> the way those people are, and that's the way 
> they're going to be."
>
>
> I remember so clearly the day I first met Mary 
> Alice and Joe Zarrella.
> I drove down to Tell City-a town I'd never heard 
> off-to interview
> them and look at their wonderful collection of 
> early CW photos, now at
> the Archives in Marquette.  Joe was a talker, as 
> some of you will
> remember, and Alice would  interject wonderfully 
> sarcastic comments.
> For example, Joe prefaced one of his stories 
> with "Now I don't tell
> this story publicly. . .." and Alice interrupted 
> with, "Well, you are.
> It's going to be on Rosalie's tape."
>
>
> Once Joe was telling a Catholic Worker story at 
> great length and a
> listener said, "Don't interrupt him.  When he's 
> finished, we'll just
> ask Mary Alice if it's true."
>
>
> Another time Joe commented on how a priest he 
> knew lived in a hotel.
> Alice rejoined, "Now don't turn that Catholic 
> Worker nose up like
> that!  Joe replied, "She keeps me human" and we 
> all laughed.
>
>
> Laughter was heard often in the Zarrella 
> household, lively in its
> early years with the four children and in later 
> years with "grands"
> and "great-grands."  Visitors to their home will 
> also remember Alice's
> beautiful roses and always warm hospitality. 
> Dorothy came often and
> she and Alice became close friends after the 
> children were born; in
> fact, Dorothy was God-mother to their youngest 
> daughter.  Joe and
> Alice always supported Catholic Worker houses 
> and Joe loved to come to
> the Sugar Creek gatherings.
>
>
> Mary Alice will be missed by her family, her 
> friends, and Midwest
> Catholic Workers, especially Clare Tina Sipula 
> of Clare House in
> Bloomington.  We rest in her memory and in the 
> conviction that she is
> where she wanted to be, with her God and her 
> beloved Joe.
>
>
> Rosalie G. Riegle
> March 23, 2007
>