A History of the First Catholic Worker Community in Worcester, Massachusetts, 1939-40

In June, 1939, the Catholic Worker began its seventh year of publication. In that issue, Dorothy Day joyfully announced that throughout the United States, there were twenty-two houses of hospitality, two farming communities and thirteen cells where the ideas of the Catholic Worker movement were discussed and practiced daily. One of these houses of hospitality, called the Matt Talbot house, was located in the downtown area of Worcester, Massachusetts. The purpose of this article is to explore the formation, development and termination of the Matt Talbot house and its community. How did this group of diverse and conscientious Catholics come together? How did they understand the Worker philosophy of personalism? What were the tensions and transformations within the community? In what ways did this experience affect their lives and visions?

The seed that gave birth to the Matt Talbot house was sown by the Boston Catholic Worker community. Two of the people involved in the formation of the community, were Dr. Margaret McNanamy-McGee and her husband, John McGee. According to them, “in 1938, a few men from the Boston group were exploring for a farm where they could give form to Peter Maurin’s ideas of cult, culture, and cultivation. After a few months of prayerful searching, they located an abandoned farm with ninety-eight acres of land.” There, in Upton, Massachusetts, 3 small rural town just south of Worcester, the Boston group established St. Benedict’s farm.

Like many other Catholic Worker acquisitions, the farm was purchased for back taxes and sixteen hundred dollars. The money was donated by Mary McSweeny, an employee of the Boston School Department, and by the Purdon sisters, who lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The neophyte farmers also bought an old army ambulance for transportation. For all those involved, the establishment of the farm was a humble and earnest attempt to fulfill Peter Maurin’s vision of an agronomic university where prayer, work and study would be united and the community could become an example of what Peter called “the new society within the shell of the old.”

The launching of this small experiment seemed even more promising because of Dorothy Day’s presence. In the June, 1938 edition of the Catholic Worker, Dorothy reported: “after a meeting in Boston, a crowd of us drove to the Catholic Worker farm at Upton to make the down payment of fifty dollars and to make plans for ploughing and chicken raising. The farm being near Worcester, our group there will be able to meet at the Upton farm once a week.” Dorothy’s reference to the Worcester community is the first indication that there was already a group of people in Worcester who were familiar with the ideas of the Catholic Worker movement. Arthur Sheehan, then a member of the Boston community, recalled that “in April of 1938, speakers from our group (in Boston) addressed the Chesterton Club Forum in Worcester. There we presented the ideas of the Catholic Worker movement.” This meeting prompted a group of interested persons to announce that the first Catholic Worker meeting would be held on the feast of the Ascension. Dr. Margaret reported the events of the meeting to the Catholic Worker: “Professor Boursey, a teacher at Holy Cross College, made plans with some of the men to start an Association of Catholic Trade Unionists. Another group intends to study the liturgy. The men at St. Benedict’s Farm, John Magee, Arthur Sheehan, Ed Willock and Cyril O’Brien, have given talks on different phases of the Catholic Worker movement.”

Among those who attended that first meeting were Mr. and Mrs. James McGinn and Mr. and Mrs. Charles Brady. Mr. McGinn went to the meeting because of his interest in the social teachings of the Catholic Church. He recalled: “I went to the first meeting and it was in a damp basement at 11 Chandler St. I was struck by the fact that there were no chairs and we sat around on packing boxes. Coming from a comfortable Irish Catholic background, I found the setting to be somewhat strange. The group seemed extremely radical and I had the idea that I was going to save them from themselves. After listening to a talk on the hospitality of the early Christian community, there was talk of getting back to the idea of hospitality that they practiced.” Mr. Brady added, “about a month later we rented an old wooden house on 25 Austin St. It was a two and one-half story house and we had the second and third floors. It all started from there.” According to Dr. Margaret, “the first floor of the house was used by Mr. Washburn the upper two stories of the house. There was a kitchen, bath, and two small rooms, a living room and two good-sized rooms on the upper floor.”

The prayers of the Worcester Catholic Workers were answered and they began to serve the needs of the poor and unemployed. The works of active love began with serving soup to those who were hungry. It was through the work on the soupline that some of the Workers began to fully understand the meaning of personal responsibility. Dorothy Day firmly believed that “it has been through the performance of the works of mercy that love is expressed, that people are converted, that the masses are reached.” They also came to realize that the Catholic Worker movement was, in the words of Mr. McGinn, an “organism rather than an organization.” Mr. McGinn believes that the operation of the soupline “was a miracle. I’m not being facetious either.” He continues, “It was always an amazing thing to me that I never recall a time when the last man in the line did not receive some kind of soup. It may have been largely water but it was something. That‘s why we called the soup ‘shadow soup’.” As for the meaning of personal responsibility, he said: “If someone saw that the soup was running thin, or the bread supply was low, he didn’t form a committee, he went out and got the bread. And it worked! To see this principle work was the most exasperating and sometimes aggravating thing to people who were used to formal organization.”

The soup was usually made in a wash boiler by Bill Sheehan, one of the men who came to receive help but stayed to give it. Mr. Brady explains the science of the soup: “We got fish heads from this man who was interested in the work. We’d find some potatoes and some of the men who came for help peeled and cut them up. The women would go down to the cellar where we had a cold stall and there they would boil the potatoes and fish heads until we got the flavor of fish chowder. Usually we served the fish chowder with the day old bread donated to us by Brokelman’s Market and Wards Bakery.” In October of 1938, Arthur Sheehan reported that the Matt Talbot house was serving between one and two hundred people a day. The day to day activity of the house involved an interpersonal network of friends who, while they did not always accept the political ideas of the Worker movement, worked together to alleviate the sufferings of their brothers and sisters in the city.

The idea of personal responsibility has been a constant source of tension in the Worker movement. The Catholic Worker always understood itself to be an organism that emphasized personal responsibility rather than an organization with a structure in which clear lines of authority were mapped out. Dorothy Day expressed this tension at the time, writing: “What with the Easton, New York, Boston, Ottawa, Toronto and Missouri groups all dis- couraged, all looking for organization instead of self-organization, all of them weary of the idea of freedom and personal responsibility–I feel bitterly oppressed, yet confirmed in the conviction that we have to emphasize personal responsibility at all costs. They accept my regime which emphasizes freedom and personal responsibility but under protest. They all complain at the idea of there being this freedom in town and that there is no boss.”

These tensions existed among the community members in Worcester but they never polarized the group. The subjects of freedom and personal responsibility served as a catalyst for discussion. During one of Peter Maurin’s visits to St. Benedict’s Farm in 1940, Mr. Brady recalls: “While Peter was expounding on the social ills of the country, I kept bringing up the fact that we didn’t have any plan. Peter said that we didn’t need any plan but more people who were interested and active in self-planning.” Mr. Brady put the issue this way: “Jim McGinn and I worked at regular jobs and functioned under some form of organization. In the Catholic Worker, organization. . .wasn’t ever to be mentioned, because it was a personalist movement. Everyone worked together but the theory was that the leaders would rise to the top. But any leaders that we had, when they started to rise to the top, wanted to organize. After all, this operation went hay-wire sometimes.” Mr. McGinn viewed the issue from another perspective: “As time wore on, I began to sense the feeling that this type of personalist operation was effective. We were all imbued with certain ideas of Christian charity but the Catholic Worker idea was one of personal responsibility. This principle was practiced time and time again.”

The soupline was an important part of the work at the Matt Talbot house of hospitality. However, other opportunities to serve the poor soon made themselves known. While operating the soupline, Dr. Margaret recalls, “it soon became evident that many of the men who came for soup had no shelter.” The rooms on the top floor were opened to those in need of overnight and long-term accommodations. The community encountered many social and psychological problems among those they served. These problems included tuberculosis and alcoholism. Somehow, they handled these difficulties through their own personal contacts at the local hospitals and other social agencies throughout the city. Some of the men who came for assistance went out to the farm in Upton where they could work and live. This practice gave substance to Peter Maurin’s idea that the farming communes would provide people with work rather than wages and exemplify production for use instead of profit.

Not all the men who came to the house for assistance became co-workers. Mr. Brady tells of a man who came to the house after having too much to drink. Upon entering, the man rushed over to the storage shelves and threw the canned food through the front window. Before long, the street below was a mess of tomato sauce, vegetables and broken glass. The police arrived and after subduing the man, they asked, “Who is in charge here?” All the workers looked at one another until Mr. Brady replied, “No one is in charge here?” “What do you mean, no one is in charge?” replied the policeman. Mr. Brady explained to him that this was a Catholic Worker house and everyone shared responsibility for one another. Therefore no one was in charge according to the officer’s understanding of the word. Somewhat confused by this response, the police wanted to know if Mr. Brady wanted the man arrested. “No”, he replied, “what good would that do him. Just take him outside until we clean up and when he has calmed down he can come back if he wants something to eat.” The confused policeman took the man outside. This story may seem strange, yet Dorothy Day once sent a letter to all the houses of hospitality counseling that problems should not be solved by an imposed order, instead they should be suffered, “the more we suffer, the more we learn. Infinite patience, suffering is needed. And it is never ending.”

Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day always maintained that the works of mercy must go hand in hand with the work of indoctrination. “We feel that the two must go together since we are trying to change the social order,” Dorothy wrote. “We have to change the social order so that men will have a chance to become men.” In accord with this belief, the Matt Talbot community formed discussion groups for the clarification of thought. Dr. Margaret recalls that these meetings were very lively and usually revolved around the ideas of the Catholic Worker movement such as personalism, pacifism, liturgy, art and the social teachings of the Catholic Church. They tried to relate these ideas to the social problems of economic depression, unemployment, labor organizing, and war. Among those who spoke at these meetings were the workers from the farm: John Magee, Arthur Sheehan, Hazen Ordway, Bill Roche, and Ed Willock. One visiting speaker was Richard Gregg, the author of the celebrated book The Power of Non-Violence. Mr. Gregg had just returned from a tour of world capitals, where he had attempted to interest national leaders in the theory and practice of non-violence as a means of resolving intranational and international conflict. “I still have vivid memories of his visit,” says Mr. McGinn. “He told us of his last stop in India. At that time Gandhi’s passive resistance campaigns were in full swing. He related his personal experiences as a witness to a few of these campaigns and how they had an enormous impact upon his thinking. After hearing Mr. Gregg, I became a pacifist myself.”

Rev. Bernard Doheny, an assistant pastor at St. Paul’s Church, was a frequent visitor and supporter of the work. Dr. Margaret writes, “he gave us a sense of courage, strength, and inspiration.” Fr. McGann, the pastor of St. Paul’s, was friendly to the Matt Talbot community and welcomed them to the parish at a time when the Catholic Worker movement was considered radical and on the fringe of American Catholicism. Another clergyman who influenced the spirit of the community was Rev. Joseph Woods O.S.B., a member of the Benedictine Portsmouth Priory in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. Fr. Woods conducted many days of recollection for the communities in Boston and Worcester. His visits were always welcomed with joyful anticipation and the promise of a meaningful talk on some aspect of Christian spirituality.

Of course, the selling of the Catholic Worker paper was an important part of the indoctrination process. In September, 1938, the CW published a letter from Worcester: “My name is Joseph Carpentar, age 13. I sell the Catholic Worker on Sundays with my brother Eddie, age 12. We got none subscriptions and we are trying to get more.” Fr. McGann gave permission to the Workers to sell the paper outside St. Paul’s Church where “Elizabeth McDermott has been foremost in the work of selling the paper.” Those who sold the paper in the streets of Worcester and outSide the church were sometimes harassed and questioned about their possible ties to communists and socialists. During one of Dorothy Day’s visits to the Worcester community, some of the Workers questioned her about the possible influence of communism in the ideas expressed in the pages of the Catholic Worker. Dorothy explained that while the Catholic Worker shared many of the social concerns of the communists, such as labor organizing, the Worker differed drastically in its understanding of man’s nature. The Worker believed that every person was essentially a spiritual being, made in the image of God yet fallen and in need of redemption. The personalism of the Catholic Worker appealed to the Catholic doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ. The Communists appealed to the principle of dialectical materialism which emphasized class struggle as the means to a more humane and just society.

In December, 1939, Dorothy Day visited the Matt Talbot House of Hospitality and spoke at the Ancient Order of Hibernians Hall. She talked about the philosophy of the Worker movement. “The C.I.O. organizers of the textile and steel industry, who have offices in the building, came to the meeting,” she reported. “We had a good conversation afterward on the condition of labor and the opposition to organizing.” After the visit, Paul Lavoie, a member of the community, wrote to New York and reported that Dorothy’s visit sparked a “round of personal interest in the work.” Mr. Lavoie wrote that there were now four people living and working at the house. A library was started and every day the men came to read and be indoctrinated in the Catholic Worker ideas. Mr. Lavoie concluded the letter with a brief account of the day’s activities:

Friday, 12-8—39, A.M. morning prayer, privately. After 7 o’clock Mass I came in to find we had the largest morning line since I’ve been here. All went well, everyone doing his bit. Joe went out on the stem for bread. Larry helped Ulric in the kitchen till I came in at 11 o’clock from the hospital.

P.M. Dinner is served and the house all cleaned from top to bottom. Arthur Sheehan read from a book called Christian Trumpet while we were eating. He stayed over last night to do some errands for the group at the farm.

Evening. John Magee and his wife came in at supper time. This gave me a feeling of joy, as it’s good to have a little family gathering I believe. The line and supper are over. perhaps some read and others, curious about the work one way or another, create an informal discussion by these questions. Bob (my brother) came in at 8 o’clock with his guitar and harmonica. He and I played music until about 9:30. Then we had a great discussion. Larry, Ulric, and I are trying to indoctrinate him all at once.

He ended the letter with a verse for Peter Maurin:

Some people say, What would be the outcome,
If we didn’t have the income.
But I say, it’s the spirit of the work that counts.

The spirit and work of hospitality and indoctrination continued through the winter of 1939 and into the spring of 1940. The Catholic Worker paper last mentioned the Matt Talbot house in the March, 1940 edition. Sometime during the summer of 1940, the house closed its doors. There were a number of reasons for the closing. Dr. Margaret recalls, “the war was coming and work was available. Some people in the community were transferred to other areas, and some moved away for other reasons. Perhaps marriages in the group played the most important part. Bill Roche and Marion McCarthy, Ed Willock and Dorothy Brophy, John Magee and I were all married. We all had to realize that poverty for the single person is quite different from that for a family.” Mr. Brady and Mr. McGinn both agreed that these were the main reasons for closing the doors.

Even though the house closed, the experience and spirit of the Catholic Worker left a permanent imprint upon the hearts and minds of all who shared in the life of the community. Wherever they went–into the practice of medicine, to the woods of Maine as a professional Scout, into the art studio, or the teaching profession–they all carried with them the knowledge that their lives had been through a profound change. Mr. McGinn summarized the experience in these words: “If we are all motivated with an idea of purpose, there should be a minimum of differences. You have to take off the old coat and put on the new. To me, the Catholic Worker is an organism and I saw it work…” When Mr. Brady was asked to share his thoughts on how the movement affected him, he replied, “on looking back, the corporal works of mercy made us more spiritual than we were before. Unquestionably! Usually, it is the other way around. It usually starts with the spiritual and then you go on to the corporal, but it seems to me that the corporal worked us back to the spiritual. I think it’s an important thing because you can take the most spiritual people in the world and, if they’re not doing the corporal works of mercy, then they’re not doing Christ’s work. They can call themselves spiritual because they go to church every Sunday but to me that is not the true meaning of Christ’s message.”

In the end, the members of the Matt Talbot community learned firsthand the truth that Peter Maurin taught in the early days of the Catholic Worker movement: “The problems of the day are fundamentally ethical problems. The problem which faces us is not fighting Communists, of which so many young priests speak so enthusiastically and ignorantly, but of changing the hearts and souls of men.”

Michael Harank, “A History of the First Catholic Worker Community in Worcester, MA. 1938-1940”, prepared circa 1976 for a course of David J. O’Brien’s at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA

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