Dialog reporter
Fifty years is a long time, but Father Dan Gerres recalls with great clarity one detail about his ordination on May 21, 1966.
“I remember that the floor was cold at St. Peter’s Cathedral,” Father Gerres said recently at Cokesbury Village in Hockessin, where he has lived for two years. He actually remembers much more about his ordination and the events surrounding it.
“You sort of get tied up in the whole thing. I stayed at St. Ann’s the night before. Father (Stanley) Russell was the one who led me through the whole thing,” he said.
Father Gerres was ordained with three other men that day – Fathers Leonard Kempski, Ray Forester and Roy Pollard. The golden jubilarians stand out for a few reasons: they were the only four ordained that day; all are Wilmington natives; all four remained in the priesthood; and all are still around half a century later. They will mark their anniversary the way their priesthoods started – together – at a Mass at St. Mary of the Assumption in Hockessin on May 21 at 11 a.m.
Fathers Gerres, Kempski and Forester shared their thoughts and recollections in separate interviews. Father Pollard is recuperating from an illness.
Father Gerres grew up in St. Ann’s Parish and attended its elementary school before heading to the seminary in Baltimore. St. Ann’s was also the site of his first Mass.
His first assignment was St. Mary Magdalen Parish in north Wilmington, which came as a bit of a surprise to him, since, he said, new priests were often sent to smaller parishes in the southern part of the diocese.
The rectory had not yet been built, so he went to the converted barn, where the pastor, Father Henry Miller, answered the door.
“The first thing he said was, ‘You don’t have a guitar, do you?’ Those were the days when they had all the guitars and everything,” Father Gerres recalled.
He spent five years in Sharpley and loved it.
“I go back there to say Mass sometimes, and people are sitting in the same seats,” he said.
Father Kempski grew up in St. Paul’s Parish in Wilmington and said his first Mass at St. Elizabeth. He recalled meeting Father Edward Leinheiser, the pastor at his first assignment, Holy Rosary in Claymont, and the career preparation he received from him.
“He comes in my room with a checkbook, and he said, ‘Someday this will all be yours,’” Father Kempski remembered.
Father Forester said he was glad to be in the seminary during Vatican II because he was able to study the documents and changes before his ordination. That may have been more difficult had he been a priest before the changes were instituted.
Young pastor
Father Gerres, 75, spent his entire ministry in New Castle County and was the pastor of Resurrection, St. John the Beloved, Immaculate Heart of Mary and St. Thomas the Apostle parishes, as well as administrator at Corpus Christi. He said he has had a few bad days, just like anyone would, but has never regretted his decision to become a priest.
“I became a pastor at an early age,” he said. “Fortunately, I went to workshops, and you sort of got the idea of collegiality. Authority was never a great problem to me. I was in the Army for 25 years, and they spent a lot of time talking about the team, so I always tried to run the place that way. I had no problem with people being in charge.”
Father Kempski, who is four years older than the other three, got to know Father Gerres since Holy Rosary and St. Mary Magdalen are not far from each other. He moved to St. Mary Magdalen when Father Gerres left and became administrator in 1974. In the same year, he was named director of vocations for the diocese, and he played an instrumental role in starting the permanent diaconate.
In 1980 he returned to parish work, and over the next three decades, he was pastor at St. Mary of the Assumption, Christ Our King in Wilmington and Good Shepherd in Perryville, Md.
That was his only parish outside New Castle County. He said he wanted “to go down to the country, whatever that meant.” Perryville was the only open assignment at the time. Like all of his other parishes, he enjoyed Good Shepherd.
“The assignments I got, they were all good assignments.,” Father Kempski said.
He retired for the first time after leaving Perryville.
“I went to live with Gerres,” he said. “He was the pastor of St. Thomas. I lived there four years, then he retired, and I was the administrator there for a year.”
Father Forester, 76, grew up as a member of Christ Our King Parish and went to the parish school before entering the minor seminary in Catonsville, Md. His assignments as an associate pastor included Corpus Christi in Elsmere, where he also taught in the parish high school.
He became a pastor for the first time in 1971 at Holy Name of Jesus in Pocomoke City, Md. He said the diocese was sending younger priests to the southern parts of the diocese to be pastors.
“I said, ‘Well, let me give it a chance.’ I spent six years in Pocomoke,” he said from Ocean City, Md., where he now lives and helps at St. Luke/St. Andrew Parish.
Unlike Fathers Gerres and Kempski, Father Forester traveled up and down the diocese, going from Pocomoke City to Corpus Christi to Holy Rosary to Good Shepherd and finally to St. Edmond’s in Rehoboth Beach.
“I used to know 13 pretty good, and U.S. 40,” he said. “I liked the country. I’m from Wilmington, so I like Wilmington, but I liked the country. I was willing to go wherever they needed me. You make the best of wherever you’re at. I enjoyed all of my assignments.”
Father Kempski, 79, got to know Father John Gayton when Father Gayton lived at Christ Our King while running an AIDS ministry in the diocese. Years later, Father Gayton invited Father Kempski to move to Holy Rosary. Shortly thereafter, Father Gayton had a military deployment, and Father Kempski was once more pressed into service as an administrator.
He remains quite active in retirement at Holy Rosary, saying Masses regularly there and a few times during the week at nearby Immaculate Heart of Mary. He also helps out with sacramental duties at the parish.
“I’m not an assistant, but I do an assistant’s work,” he said. “What I mean being retired, it means I’m not responsible for money, for ice on the sidewalks, for keeping people happy. The killer always for priests is the administrative side. It takes time. And most of us were not cut out for that.”
‘Hindsight’s great’
Father Pollard, also 76, attended local public schools and Salesianum School, and was a member of St. Thomas the Apostle Parish. He moved as an associate pastor from Ss. Peter and Paul in Easton, Md., to St. Catherine of Siena, Wilmington; St. Matthew’s, Wilmington; Our Lady of Fatima, New Castle; and St. John the Beloved, Wilmington.
He became a pastor in 1976, serving at St. Benedict, Ridgely, Md.; St. Ann, Bethany Beach; St. Helena’s, Wilmington; St. Mary of the Assumption; Holy Spirit, New Castle; and St. Paul’s, Delaware City. Father Pollard has served as diocesan Boy Scouts chaplain and a member of the diocesan Cemetery Board, the Tribunal and Ulster Project Delaware.
Father Gerres said the church changed a great deal from the time he entered the minor seminary in the mid-1950s and when he was ordained, toward the end of Vatican II.
“We had to introduce to parents that they were the primary educators of their children for First Communion. Up to that point, the nuns had always done it,” he said. “I remember the meetings that we had, there was a lot of ‘why can’t the nuns do it?’ and so forth. But now it’s just assumed that’s the way it’s going to be.”
After retiring five years ago, he lived at St. Elizabeth Parish until moving to Cokesbury Village. He likes that he is around a lot of people and that everything he needs is provided on site. He counts about 10 parishes where he helps when needed, primarily at nearby St. Mary of the Assumption. Although retired, he likes to stay busy.
“One of the things that is so important is to say Mass everyday. It also gives me a structure to my life. So on those days when I don’t say Mass — which are really very seldom — I sort of fumble around. I don’t know what to do in the morning. I have breakfast, and then what do you do after that?” he said.
Back in Claymont, Father Kempski — like Father Gerres — sees some of the parishioners he taught in the parish school and is now baptizing their grandchildren. He rarely takes a day off, which is fine by him.
“I take after my father. My father was a homebody. I’ve got everything I want here, so I don’t have any problem.”
Father Forester used to ride his bike around Rehoboth Beach and swim in the ocean, although a hip replacement and a bad foot have prevented him from those pursuits. He said he made the right decision to become a priest and the 50 years have gone by “pretty quickly.” He said he’s still learning a half century later.
“I would have done things a little differently. Hindsight’s great,” he said.
He is looking forward to seeing his fellow jubilarians and is grateful all four are still around and able to be at St. Mary of the Assumption.
“It will be great to get together,” he said. “Two hundred years, that’s pretty good.”
