Supporters Like You

Loren Schillinger has a unique perspective on Catholic Extension. He was raised in a mission diocese, attending a church that Catholic Extension helped to fund. His professional years were spent in cities throughout the United States, finding new churches with each stop, and better grasping Extension’s commitment to build strong and welcoming parishes.

His final job was working in another mission diocese, seeing firsthand the extent of its reliance on Extension and the impact of this funding. When planning for his estate he decided to give back to the organization that he has come to appreciate deeply over his lifetime.

Early years

 

Schillinger grew up attending St. Ann Church in Vida, Montana, in the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings. He recalls his family receiving the monthly Extension magazine and picking up the Extension calendar at the back of the church. But more vividly, he remembers what a special place the church was for his family and neighbors. His grandfather, Joseph, a great grandson of a German immigrant, who homesteaded in Vida in 1913 with a wheat and barley farm, had helped to build the church with a Catholic Extension grant in 1933.

Schillinger’s faith was nurtured at the church. A priest came every two weeks for Mass and on alternate weeks they attended another mission church (15 miles away) or the parish church (30 miles away). During winter the church was heated only on Sundays. While often a cold place for the early morning Mass, for the 50 to 75 parishioners who called it home, St. Ann was the center of their lives.

Finding new churches

 

At age 18, when Schillinger left the family farm to pursue school and a career, he wanted to stay connected to his faith. Little did he know that this would mean finding several new churches, given how often he moved. With a chemical engineering degree from Montana State University in 1975 and a master of business administration degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1982, he worked in financial positions for FMC Corporation, Eli Lilly & Company and Dow AgroSciences in several places, including Pocatello, Idaho; Philadelphia; Lawrence, Kansas; Lafayette, Indiana; Roanoke, Virginia, and Indianapolis, Indiana. He retired in 2007.

In each location, Schillinger sought out Catholic communities. He experienced the Church in America across diverse urban and rural settings.

Working in a mission diocese

Finishing his first career, he headed back West to Cheyenne, Wyoming to be closer to his ailing father. He heard that the Diocese of Cheyenne needed help with its finances, so he began assisting the diocese’s chief financial officer with accounting, financial planning and budgeting. There he saw the huge role Catholic Extension played in supporting the diocese.

The diocese, which covers the entire state, was founded in 1887. Catholic Extension’s first grant to Cheyenne was in 1909. Over the years, Extension has granted more than $10 million (nearly $18 million in today’s dollars) to the diocese, including 130 grants for building and repairing churches.

In the last five years, Extension’s funding of more than $1.5 million to the diocese has supported seminarian education, campus and young adult ministries, priests’ salaries, Catholic school leadership and Hispanic ministry.

As a businessman, Schillinger saw how Extension guided and empowered the diocese. “The Diocese of Cheyenne would really struggle without Catholic Extension,” he said.

With Extension assistance, Schillinger attended fiscal management conferences for networking and training. In 2010 he became chief financial officer for Cheyenne, a position he held until his second retirement in 2015.

Looking ahead

Schillinger moved to Denver and now attends Cure d’Ars Church, a multi-ethnic, inner-city parish, where he is on the finance council.

He recently put together an estate plan and chose three beneficiaries, including Catholic Extension. “For years, I have seen the vital work of Catholic Extension,” he said. “Little parishes wouldn’t exist without Extension’s help. Allowing them to have Mass, even once a month, is so important.”

He’s still grateful for St. Ann Church during his childhood. “Back then, I didn’t understand everything that Catholic Extension did, but I felt its impact every time I went to Mass,” he said. “Now I understand the scope of what it does. It helps in so many places.”

John chose Catholic Extension because he believes the organization functions like he does – focusing on the basics and keeping it simple.

Hailing from northern Indiana, John attended Ray–Vogue School of Fine Arts and became a photographer. In Chicago he worked for a newspaper, took industrial photos for Pullman Company and did corporate and food photography.

But John craved a slower and quieter lifestyle. In 1987, he bought a farm in southern Indiana, in a town of 1,400 called Vevay along the Ohio River. The farm includes a beautiful log house heated by wood, a barn and a creek. Wild turkey, deer and coyote wander about and eagles soar above.

A few years later, he married Antoinette, nicknamed Toni and fondly called “Sweetie.” She was warm, fun–loving and active in the arts, serving as president of the board at Vevay’s historic Hoosier Theatre. “She was a peach,” he said.

As they happily settled into marriage, John pursued another career — in cooking — and became head chef for Archbishop Pilarczyk of Cincinnati, making the 58–mile commute each way to Cincinnati.

At age 56, John retired to concentrate on his other interests, including antique cars — he owns four and attends several car shows nationally every year — and to spend more time with Toni and riding his bike.

It was during a bicycling trip together in 2014 that his beloved wife of 22 years, fell off her bike and lost her life.

In his shock and grief, he searched for ways to find solace and to celebrate the legacy of his wife. In particular, John had received income from Toni’s family business and wanted to use it in a special way.

He had sent donations to Catholic Extension in previous years and always reads Extension magazine. When another Extension mailing arrived, he realized that this was the perfect partner. With Toni’s estate, he bought a charitable gift annuity.

“I have always liked Catholic Extension. The money goes directly to projects — without any waste – and helps in very simple but powerful ways,” he said. “It helps small parishes who are struggling. No one else does that.”

John appreciates Catholic Extension’s basic support, such as educating seminarians and subsidizing the salaries of priests and sisters.

“We need leaders to run the Church,” he added. “We must have people coming down the pipeline to keep the Church going.”

In addition, John is thankful for Catholic Extension’s efforts – in all of its ministries – to inspire new vocations. “It’s important to have priests and sisters around because if you never meet one, you’re not likely to become one.”

In addition to his generous donation, he has also named Catholic Extension as a beneficiary in his own will.

John remains active in Vevay, serving on three boards, kayaking and reading four books a week — but he misses his Sweetie.

He is grateful to honor her through Catholic Extension by assisting those in need. Her joyful and caring spirit continues.

But she was interested in turning her faith into action. “This was the mid-’60s, and ‘lay apostolate’ was a big word then,” she said. Young people wanted to get involved and give back.

The Extension Lay Volunteer (ELV) program, which Catholic Extension ran from 1960 to 1971, provided an opportunity to do just that, sending young people to serve in mission dioceses across the country.

“When I look back, I can’t believe I signed up to go somewhere far away,” said Eleanor. She had grown up in a tiny town in upstate New York and attended college in nearby Albany. Becoming an ELV was a “big step for a small-town girl,” she said.

After ELV orientation in Chicago, Eleanor was sent to Rock Springs, Wyoming, then a town of about 10,000. Its residents included many second generation Eastern Europeans who had immigrated to Wyoming to work in the coal mines.

She spent two years in Rock Springs as a parish worker (“jack of all trades”), embedding herself in the community, working closely with the beloved parish priest and marveling at the landscape, from barren sand and sagebrush to the majestic Teton Mountains. “Neither were like the round, green mountains of upstate New York,” she said.

During this time, Eleanor also met her husband, Ray, who was from Rock Springs. They married in 1969 and lived all over the world while he served in the U.S. Army.

As an Army wife, Eleanor continued to live out her faith and volunteer in a variety of capacities. “I volunteered to be an ELV, and I’ve been volunteering ever since,” she said with a chuckle.

Whether they were living in Europe, Korea or the Middle East, Eleanor always found a church and got involved. “I’m still involved in the Military Council of Catholic Women,” she noted.

Throughout her globetrotting existence, Eleanor also maintained her relationship with Catholic Extension, financially supporting its ministries and, more recently, becoming a member of Catholic Extension’s Legacy Club. “People think of mission work as Africa or China. They don’t think of the U.S. What impresses me most is that we’re taking care of our own, and Catholic Extension has been leading the way for more than a century,” she said.

Eleanor also values Catholic Extension’s commitment to servicemen and women and their families. “Every year on Catholic Extension’s Christmas Wish List there’s something for the military, and we like to give to that,” she said.

Eleanor and Ray have finally made a permanent home in Colorado, but reflecting on the last 50 years, Eleanor is amazed at her journey. “It’s unbelievable,” she said. “You just don’t know where a path will lead. Being an ELV changed my life.”

Her adventure began through a letter-writing club in Extension magazine. Catholic Extension Society has been publishing Extension since 1906 to reveal the great, diverse and changing missionary needs of the Catholic Church in the United States. It has made a powerful impact in countless households across multiple generations.

For example, 6,000 women passion­ately sewed vestments for priests in the U.S. missions through the Order of Martha that was started by Catholic Extension Society in 1911. One of those women was the mother of the late Cardinal Fran­cis George of Chicago.

Likewise, more than 700 baby boomers remember how Cath­olic Extension Society recruited them as young adults in the 1960s to spend two life-changing years serving the poor in the U.S. They were called the Extension Lay Volunteers.

But one family’s history with Catholic Extension Society is even more special.

Lolita Hagio is a supporter of Catholic Extension Society. The life of her late mother, Irene, was transformed by a program in Extension maga­zine called the “Chaperon Club,” which was advertised in the magazine as a “way of making Catholic friends all over the United States and abroad.”

It began in 1927 after readers had requested for years that the pub­lication devise a way to connect them with other Catholics from around the country. Unmarried Catholics over the age of 17 were eligible to join. Interested readers mailed in brief descriptions of themselves and their hobbies. They were assigned an anonymous “club number,” their information was printed in a bulletin, and they could then start a letter-writing relationship with another member.

By 1950, more than 40,000 people had joined since the program’s inception. A maga­zine issue from that year stated, “While we shout from the house­tops that we are not a matrimo­nial bureau, nor do we encour­age such a thing, we cannot stop certain acquaintances from rip­ening into deep friendships, and some into love, and we must admit that hundreds of mar­riages have resulted.”

It can only be concluded that, for decades, Extension magazine offered the pre-technology version of online dating for Catholics.

It was through this initiative that Lolita’s widowed mother, Irene, found love in 1962 at the age of 65.

Irene’s husband had passed away in 1950 after 31 years of mar­riage. He worked for the Rock Island Railroad in Chicago, where he and Irene raised seven chil­dren, including a son who served in World War II. Ten years after her husband’s death, they had all moved away, and Irene found her­self living alone.

Lolita recalled visiting her mother one day.

“What would you think if I got married again?” Irene asked.

“Mom, that would be great, but you don’t know anybody,” Lol­ita replied.

She was surprised and thought her mother couldn’t be serious. Her mother was an intensely shy person and not a risk taker, she said.

Irene told her daughter about the gentleman she had been writ­ing letters back and forth with for several months through the Chap­eron Club program in Extension magazine. His name was Albert, a widower himself, and he lived in Montana.

“My mom felt it was OK to cor­respond with this person. She sensed that it that was a good thing that it was in a Catholic mag­azine,” Lolita said. “She felt that someone—of course, Himself—was guiding her up there.”

To the shock of her friends and family, Irene cleared out her home, bought a train ticket, and traveled by herself to Montana. When she saw Albert waiting for her at the train station, “she knew she had made the right decision,” Lolita recalled.

They married shortly after Irene arrived. The wedding took place at St. Joseph’s Church, a parish supported by Catholic Extension Society in Choteau, Montana.

Lolita reflected that Albert was different than her father. He was an outdoorsman, with Chippewa and French-Canadian heritage. He had been a cowboy in his youth. Irene embraced his lifestyle, learn­ing to fish and trap. They shared a strong faith and adventurous spirit.

“He was such a good man. Our family just adored him and ac­cepted him,” Lolita said.

After several years in Montana, they moved to Arizona for the warmer weather. Albert passed away from cancer in 1972 in the care of Irene’s family in Chicago.

Irene lived another 10 years before dying at the age of 85.

Lolita feels that Catholic Extension Society is a part of her family’s story by helping her mother rediscover love and happiness in life.

“Extension magazine made all this happen. It provided a whole new life for her,” she said. “Mom was a woman of faith, and that drove her to make the decisions in her life.”

Lolita’s connection to Cath­olic Extension Society is still more personal. In 1950 we helped build her own parish, St. George, in a Utah town that shares the same name. Today the parish is a vibrant, multicultural faith com­munity where she serves as a cantor.

She said she is “fascinated” by the work of the Catholic Church in the United States among the poor in the poor­est regions.

She knows that Cath­olic Extension Society’s impact is not unique to her family. It impacts people all across the country by building up vibrant Catholic faith communities.

 “It makes sense to me to support a mission like that,” she said.

Lolita has joined our Legacy Club, a special group of Catholic Extension Society supporters who have named us as a beneficiary in their estate.

Through this commitment, she is helping other families experience the joy of faith, so they too will know what her mother understood: that love and life is precious at any age, and God is present through it all.  

Marguerite McMahon left a generous planned gift to Catholic Extension Society that will support the education of seminarians in perpetuity.

These future priests come from and are preparing to serve the poorest regions of the country. Her final gift reflects the vocation she followed in her own life—to develop the next generation through quality education.

McMahon was born in Chicago in 1924 to Irish immigrant parents. She grew up on the South Side on Princeton Avenue and was the youngest of three children.

A Chicagoan all her life, she was devoted to the city and her favorite teams: the White Sox and the formerly Chicago-based Cardinals football team.

After completing high school, she pursued a career in education—one of the few professions open to women at the time.

She graduated from Chicago Teachers College in 1946 and began teaching third grade.

In 1956 she earned a master’s degree in education at DePaul University and became assistant principal at James Shields Elementary School.

Four years later, she embarked on a new, daunting challenge: principal of Davis Elementary School.

The school was located in a lower-income, high-crime neighborhood. She often told the story about how, when she first got the job, she brought her parents to see her new workplace. It was covered in graffiti. For McMahon, the state of the school was unacceptable. Five years later, she was excited to bring back her parents. The building was completely cleaned up.

“She took a lot of pride in making sure things were nice,” said Ann Eiden, her niece.

McMahon’s transformation of Davis Elementary School went far beyond physical appearance. She developed a system that allowed the children to advance in their education at their own pace.

Eiden said, “It was always really important to her that each child do as well as they could at whatever level that might be. She wanted everybody to have the best chances in life that they possibly could.”

Through her relationship-building and leadership, she helped the school establish a stable and healthy presence in the community. She knew all of the families and police officers.

“The kids loved her. The parents loved her. There was a lot of mutual respect,” said Eiden.

During this time she was also heavily involved in her parish, St. Thomas More. For several years she also served as president of the Aquin Guild, an association of Catholics teaching in public schools in the Archdiocese of Chicago.

She volunteered at all of the parish’s celebrations and events. She maintained strong friendships with priests, even after they moved on to new assignments.

Paul Joyce, her nephew, said, “She saw a priest as the mainstay of the Church.”

After more than three decades in education, McMahon retired as principal of Davis Elementary School in 1982.

However, she did not slow down. She took up work as a paralegal, traveled the world and enjoyed her favorite hobbies: bowling and golfing. As always, she contributed her time and generosity to her family, her parish and many Catholic organizations, including Catholic Extension Society.

McMahon is remembered by her family as a woman of great intelligence, integrity, loyalty and faith.

In following her own calling, she shaped a generation of students on the South Side. Similarly, she understood the value of a quality education for men on the path to priesthood.

Her many years of support to Catholic Extension Society contributed to the education of thousands of priests serving in faith communities today.

Through her parting gift, countless more seminarians will develop the extensive knowledge and skills necessary to carry on the work of the Church—now and far into the future.