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PITTSBURG —
A tradition that is both historic and delicious will be revived at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, Arma.
The spring spaghetti dinner, usually held around March 19, feast day of St. Joseph, is coming back. Because of scheduling conflicts, it wasn’t possible to have the dinner in March this year, so it will be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. May 6 at St. Joseph’s Parish Hall.
Chairmen this year are Betty Rons and Karen Pryer.
“Fr. Roger Lumbre wanted us to do something, so we tossed around all kinds of ideas,” Pryer said. “He pushed us.”
“It will be a lot of work, but it will be fun,” Rons said.
The two women were well acquainted with the original spaghetti dinners, as was Alba Marchetti, a sister-in-law of Emma Pastore, a legendary Arma cook and main leader of the early spaghetti dinners.
Marcel Normand, who has compiled a church history, believes the first dinner was held in 1968 or 1969. A 1970 newspaper ad lists the cost as $1 for adults and 50 cents for children up to the age of 12.
The dinners sometimes coincided with the Lenten season, when Catholics are not permitted to eat meat on Fridays. In at least one year, Fr. Raymond E. Whelan, serving as pastor, announced that Catholics attending the St. Joseph’s Day dinner would be granted a dispensation from the Lenten requirement of abstaining from meat so they could enjoy the meatballs.
“Emma Pastore would have all the spices for the spaghetti sauce tied up in bags,” Rons said. “We’ll be using the original recipe.”
“It was in my family’s recipe book,” Pryer said. “My father and mother were always discussing how to make spaghetti sauce. One would make it one way, and the other would make it another way.”
Pastore worked the dinners until she just felt she couldn’t any more, and then Karen Zerngast took over. She made some changes.
“We made all the sauce in the parish hall kitchen, and Emma had ladies in the community cook spaghetti and bring it to the hall,” Marchetti said. “She had a schedule worked out for when they were supposed to bring in their spaghetti.
“I told Emma that we would cook all the spaghetti at Chicken Mary’s and then we brought it over,” Zerngast said. “That way it was all cooked the same.”
The dinners stopped some time in the 1980s, and that was that for 40 years or so, until Fr. Lumbre decided he wanted the parish to have a project.
A tradition that is both historic and delicious will be revived at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, Arma.
The spring spaghetti dinner, usually held around March 19, feast day of St. Joseph, is coming back. Because of scheduling conflicts, it wasn’t possible to have the dinner in March this year, so it will be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. May 6 at St. Joseph’s Parish Hall.
Chairmen this year are Betty Rons and Karen Pryer.
“Fr. Roger Lumbre wanted us to do something, so we tossed around all kinds of ideas,” Pryer said. “He pushed us.”
“It will be a lot of work, but it will be fun,” Rons said.
The two women were well acquainted with the original spaghetti dinners, as was Alba Marchetti, a sister-in-law of Emma Pastore, a legendary Arma cook and main leader of the early spaghetti dinners.
Marcel Normand, who has compiled a church history, believes the first dinner was held in 1968 or 1969. A 1970 newspaper ad lists the cost as $1 for adults and 50 cents for children up to the age of 12.
The dinners sometimes coincided with the Lenten season, when Catholics are not permitted to eat meat on Fridays. In at least one year, Fr. Raymond E. Whelan, serving as pastor, announced that Catholics attending the St. Joseph’s Day dinner would be granted a dispensation from the Lenten requirement of abstaining from meat so they could enjoy the meatballs.
“Emma Pastore would have all the spices for the spaghetti sauce tied up in bags,” Rons said. “We’ll be using the original recipe.”
“It was in my family’s recipe book,” Pryer said. “My father and mother were always discussing how to make spaghetti sauce. One would make it one way, and the other would make it another way.”
Pastore worked the dinners until she just felt she couldn’t any more, and then Karen Zerngast took over. She made some changes.
“We made all the sauce in the parish hall kitchen, and Emma had ladies in the community cook spaghetti and bring it to the hall,” Marchetti said. “She had a schedule worked out for when they were supposed to bring in their spaghetti.
“I told Emma that we would cook all the spaghetti at Chicken Mary’s and then we brought it over,” Zerngast said. “That way it was all cooked the same.”
The dinners stopped some time in the 1980s, and that was that for 40 years or so, until Fr. Lumbre decided he wanted the parish to have a project.
Pryer said the project has taken off.
“We’ve probably got 40 people involved now,” she said. “Betty and I went around and got a lot of donations. We’ve got about 37 door prizes now.”
Rons said she had around 100 pounds of ground beef for the meatballs. The menu will also include green beans, salad, Italian bread, dessert and beverage.
The cooking will be done at the Arma Elementary School kitchen.
Next year, Pryer and Rons plan to turn the dinner over to Tom and Debbie Amershek.
He used to bring his future wife to the dinner while they were dating.
“I still remember coming at times when there would be people everywhere,” Amershek said.
“We would have 600 to 700 people,” Zerngast said.
Mrs. Amershek said that she and her husband would gain from getting all the expertise from Pryer, Rons, Marchetti and others who worked on the dinner in past years.
“The dinner will be a lot easier next year,” she said.
