EVERETT — For 63 years, Immaculate Conception Church has been the center of Mary Jamieson’s spiritual and social life.
Today, the church will honor Jamieson and more than 70 other church "pioneers" — those who have attended the church for at least 50 years — at a dinner to help celebrate the parish’s 100th anniversary. About 200 people are expected.
The Everett woman is one of 19 church members who have been interviewed as part of a videotaped oral history project. The first of three 20- to 30-minute edited videos of the interviews will premiere at the dinner today, and the others will be shown at a breakfast in May and a picnic in August.
Immaculate Conception Church was created in 1904 after Everett’s first Catholic parish — century-old Our Lady of Perpetual Help — had outgrown its church.
Parishioners met for several years in an old store building near 28th Street and Rucker Avenue before moving to Hoyt Avenue and 25th Street in 1967, more than a year after the first building was torn down.
Today the glossy parish directory has a two-page written history of the church, but the oral history "shows the humanity of everyone," said Phil La Grandeur, who has been filming the interviews.
"The directory shows that we built a church here and a gym here and a school here, but it doesn’t show the people behind the scenes who made it happen. This parish is about people," he said.
La Grandeur is part of a centennial celebration committee that came up with the idea for the oral-history project.
Judy Romaneschi conducted most of the interviews.
"I’ve known most of these people for a long time, and it’s been a lot of fun to hear all of their stories," she said. "This brings in more than just the hierarchy of the church. It brings in the people who knelt in the pews and were there for the fund-raisers."
Romaneschi, 64, herself is one of the pioneers. She was born and raised in Everett and has attended Immaculate Conception since she was an infant. She has since taught adult and children’s religious education and served on the school commission and parish council.
"The church has always been the center of my life," she said. "It’s where I put all my energies."
The church has been the focus of Jamieson’s life as well. She has lived within a few blocks of Immaculate Conception since she converted from the Baptist faith to Catholicism in the early 1940s. Her late husband had gone there since 1924.
Jamieson, 80, has been involved in fund-raising and social groups at the church since the 1950s.
"Some of the friendships I made during those days are still around," she said. "I still see them today."
Jamieson has found comfort in the church during difficult times, such as her husband’s death 30 years ago.
"We talk about it as being our parish family," she said. "I’ve always known that my church family would be there for me. If I need help, all I have to do is pick up the telephone and call."
Reporter David Olson:
425-339-3452 or
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