'Devotion of the Parishioners' heard in the peal of the Italian-made bell

Saint Gerard's Catholic church in May 2022

Saint Gerard’s Church in Wildwood closed June 30

BY BARB BOMBARDIR AND MARK MERLINO

Before Saint Gerard’s was built, families from Wildwood would walk and in later years take the company bus across the river to Saint Joseph’s church in the Townsite to attend mass.

1958 Saint Gerard's Catholic Church soon after being built (before the bell tower)

Encouraged by the large community of mainly Italian and Dutch Catholic immigrant families, in 1956 Father Joseph McInerney obtained permission to construct a neighbourhood church on land on King Avenue in Wildwood that had been donated by farmers Ed and Gladys Dittloff. He asked parishioners to help to build a church dedicated to Italian Saint Gerard Majella, the cherished patron of expectant mothers and their children.

Many local working men gladly responded to his call to volunteer and then quickly constructed their new community church.

One of these volunteers was Fausto DeVita who at the time was a young shift worker at the Mill. Fausto felt happy and proud to come help work on the construction every day either before or after his shift. He felt like they were constructing a highway to heaven and he has faithfully attended mass at Saint Gerard’s since its opening in April 1957.

2022 Fausto DeVita inside Saint Gerard's. Fausto helped to build the church in 1957

When Armando Bombardir, another parishioner who had volunteered to construct the church, passed away in 1971, his wife Mary commissioned a bell to be installed in Saint Gerard’s in his honor. One of the world’s finest bell-making foundries is located in the town of Agnone in Molise, Italy, next to Mary’s picturesque hometown of Bagnoli del Trigno.

The Marinelli Pontificia Fonderia di Campane has been producing bells since the year 1339. Each bronze bell is uniquely designed by hand then filled with a molten alloy heated to over 1100 degrees Celsius into a sculpted mold of clay and wax. The artisans from the Marinelli Foundry say that there is always some magic in the crafting of a bell and that every bell has a different soul. This is definitely the case for the Saint’s Gerard’s bell, which is inscribed in memory of Armando Bombardir and was accompanied from Italy by Armando’s brother, a priest, Amadeo Bombardir.

1972 the Bombardir brothers who installed the bell in honor of their brother Armando who passed away that year

1972 the Bombardir brothers who installed the bell in honor of their brother Armando who passed away that year

The 500-pound bell was lifted by a crane and installed in Saint Gerard’s new bell tower in 1972 by Armando’s four brothers and son. From then on, whenever Mary approached the church, she would look up at the bell tower and make the sign of the cross acknowledging her husband.

The bell has meant a lot to the Bombardir family as a whole and over the decades and up to the present, different family members have taken turns ringing the bell to call the faithful to mass.

1983 - Kathy and Gerry Bennett at the baptism of Andrea Desilets

More recent newcomers to Saint Gerard’s, such as Don McDonell, have found the dedication of the local parishioners moving. Truly, the spirit that has sustained and inspired the Saint Gerard’s community is best captured in a little seen Italian inscription at the base of the bell: Devozione dei Parrocchiani – devotion of the parishioners.

2012 - offertory procession in Saint Gerard's

Over the years however, most of the original families and the younger generations have left Wildwood, either moving to Westview or to other communities in search of work.

Sadly, Saint Gerard’s Catholic church was closed for divine worship at the end of June, this year.