A smile and a cheery word are two prime ingredients Mrs. Grace Miles uses in her recipe for keeping the parish house at St. Anthony Church in West End rolling smoothly.

“I keep a bundle of smiles ready,” she said, “And believe me I’m not afraid to use them. A smile goes a long way.”

Mrs. Miles is 63, a retired railroad clerk who has lived in Atlanta all her life. She has been housekeeper at St. Anthony for approximately a year.

She explained how she got the job: “Well, I heard that the former housekeeper at the parish house walked off and left the priests and Msgr. King (the late Msgr. King) high and dry.”

“I was retired so I came down to the church and saw Msgr. King and told him I had heard about the situation and said I could cook. When he heard I could cook he said, ‘good’ and I got the job.”

“And I’ve enjoyed every minute since.”

Mrs. Miles is a pretty woman, small in stature and big of grin. Her hair is red, streaked with a little gray and she has a lovely set of blue eyes sparkling out from behind her spectacles. She looks just like somebody’s little old mother. On this she said,

“The priests here at St. Anthony’s are just like my sons, my very own and I try to treat them like my sons.”

The tragic fact of the matter is that Mr. Miles is a mother, but her son was killed in the prime of life in a fire.

“The priests remind me of my son and although I still miss him greatly being with these young fathers helps me to get over his loss,” she said.

Mrs. Miles is a convert from the Presbyterian Church. She said, “My friends ask me why I joined the Catholic Church. I just tell them I finally found what I wanted.”

She has been a Catholic since 1944. Her husband died first and then her son in 1964.

Her new “sons” include the pastor, the Rev. R. Donald Kiernan, the Rev. Glen E. Davis, assistant pastor and the Revs. William Hoffman and Hugh Taylor, both residents.

In addition to Mrs. Miles at the rectory there is the maid, Beatrice Lindsey. Mrs. Miles expressed affection for her when she said, “She is a wonderful girl, fine and kind and we get along tops.”

The big family has one pet, a feline by the name of Catechism which allegedly belongs to Father Kiernan. Catechism is quite prolific having “found” several offspring in the past year.

Catechism is described by Mrs. Miles as “very gentle and very intelligent.”

Mrs. Miles was asked by The Bulletin if she is ever provoked to referee an argument in the parish household. She answered, “They, (the priests), are all good humored and don’t argue. Now sometimes they might come to me for a little motherly advice but by the same token I often need and receive their advice.”

She said that on occasion the priests at St. Anthony will join in and help her with the house work.

To give you an idea of the spunk of this little lady, when she being interviewed for this story this weekend she was suffering from a cold with a cough hard and rough enough to put a lumberjack on his sickbed. Mrs. Miles smiled and joked her way through the interview in spite of the discomfiture.

That good nature gets her over a lot of otherwise disarming predicaments at the church. She said, “I smile all the time. I don’t get cross with people when they call the rectory and ask when is the ten o’clock Mass or when at Christmas they’ll call up and ask me what time is midnight Mass.”