Meet Parishioner Mary Grace Tassone: Blessed to Serve and Be Involved in Parish Life

When Mary Grace Tassone was just 5 years old, her family — her parents and, at the time, six siblings — moved to California from Michigan. She ended up having nine brothers and two sisters. Later, Mary Grace spent three years studying nursing — then in 1956, when her mother passed, she came home and helped raise her five younger brothers. Her father worked a lot in San Francisco, so Mary Grace often spent time at home with the younger kids.

“I’m not sure if I raised them, or if they raised me,” Mary Grace says. “I was a little more ‘old school’ and I learned a lot from the five of them.”

Over the 80 years that Mary Grace has been a parishioner at St. Patrick, she has been involved in many different ways. When she was young, she played the organ until the parish got a professional organist. She sang in the choir, served as a lector, and was an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion. She also helped take Communion to the sick, homebound, and those in nursing homes. Over the years, she helped the parish in any way she was able.

“Being involved was a natural thing because of the way our parents taught us,” Mary Grace says. “I enjoyed being involved in everything. I think my favorite part was bringing Communion to those that couldn’t make it to Mass. I was able to do this around my nursing schedule.” In addition to being involved in the parish, Mary was an OR nurse for 50 years. She had to learn over the years how to balance her demanding work schedule with her desire to be involved in parish life. “It wasn’t that hard to balance because I wanted to be involved,” Mary Mary Grace Tassone Grace says. “I made sure I did my work duties, and then in my free time, I did whatever I could to help the parish.” Mary Grace also spent two years in Lourdes. She went to study a special vocation for single women that, at the time, was not commonly known in the United States. There, she studied and learned about the Church. To this day, she still has a strong devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes and tries to listen to the Rosary when it is streamed on her iPad from Lourdes. Seven years ago, when Mary Grace was helping to unlock the church for 7:30 a.m. Mass, she was struck on the head. She doesn’t remember much of the details, but she ended up in the hospital for a year with a traumatic brain injury.

“I tried to go home for a year,” Mary Grace says. “But, I had a seizure and ended up at Golden Empire Nursing and Rehab Center. Nobody expected me to leave there, but I think the Lord did not want me to stay there and had something else for me to do. I was able to leave on Dec. 31, 2021.

“Now I live at Atria, which is residential living,” she adds. “I get my own studio apartment, which I love because I have more freedom. I don’t have a roommate, which means I get my own space. My sister and my niece have helped me get it all organized.”

Mary Grace still goes back to the parish occasionally for funerals or special events. And she still loves the parish.

“Even though I forget a lot and I don’t remember a lot, when I get to go back, I meet people that I can all of a sudden recognize, so it is wonderful to go back,” she says.

Mary Grace Tassone