By Rita McInerney

(A parishioner at Sts. Peter and Paul in Decatur suggested that the life of Dolores Maschinot, a wife and mother of eight children who was also active in peace and justice work in the archdiocese, was a story to be told. Mrs. Maschinot died Dec. 22 at the age of 56.)

At the Christmas night wake service, family and friends of Dolores Maschinot spoke of this quiet woman in words of loving memory.

Friend and former pastor, Father Henry Gracz, said the service was the best part of his Christmas, an experience “of faith and hope, of love incarnate. That’s the meaning of Christmas.”

Michael Maschinot, third son of Dolores and Joseph, read lines by e.e. cummings from a book of the poet’s work he had given his mother for Christmas: “if there are any heavens my mother will (all by herself) have one…it will not be a pansy heaven nor a fragile heaven...it will be a heaven of blood red roses…” he read in part.

The poem inspired Cece Morgan, who knew Dolores and Joe through Clergy and Laity Concerned, to write her own remembrance for the CALC newsletter. She wrote of seeing Dolores tending other flowers also: “…each tender plant, just as she tended to those whom sh loved – in her family and in her Bible study; in her church and in the many ministries that she was part of.”

Who was Dolores Maschinot, 56, wife-friend of Joe; mother-friend to eight children; caring friend to neighbors, parishioners at Sts. Peter and Paul parish in Decatur, activists for social justice, for peace?

“She was a marvelous woman. She had a wonderful sense of laughter rooted in wisdom. She was always present to people,” Father Gracz, her pastor for nine years at Sts. Peter and Paul, said.

To Glenmary Father Gerry Conroy she was a Catholic “who took the Church’s teaching on making an option for the poor to heart…She was like a rock. Part of her vocation was teaching her children to love the poor and they did…She wasn’t afraid to speak for truth, especially the truth about how the poor are victims in our society.”

Her name was “always at the top of the list…she and Joe…they worked as a team” when Father Conroy was seeking lay Catholics active in peace and justice to help organize the Southeast Center for Justice.

She became a member of the core group, as treasurer, for the center. Not one to be first enthusiastic, then discouraged, “she was the quiet, persistent type of person who saw the process through. She kept on,” Father Conroy said. “She was an ordinary person who loved justice.”

“She was a beautiful woman,” another friend said. Sister Kathy Tomlin, C.S.J., knew her through peace and justice groups. “In one sense she was always behind the scenes helping or organize. She helped me with the Children of War tour.”

“She didn’t have to carry a banner, her life was a banner. Her presence – she would be there – at the King Center, at Mt. Zion Baptist Church, at Senator Nunn’s office, at Clergy and Laity Concerned,” Sister Tomlin recalled.

Sister Jean Booms, I.H.M. met Dolores about 10 years ago at Sts. Peter and Paul School. She was active in the Women’s Council and served as president. “She did a lot. When she saw a need she tried to do something about it. She was there for whatever needed to be done.”

The Maschinots joined the parish in 1968, the year they moved here from Knoxville, Tenn. Their eight children were raised with compassion and concern for the poor as their way of life. “We didn’t preach to them,” Joe said. “But they got the idea that all people should be treated with dignity.”

For many years the couple represented the parish at CALC and Dolores served on the board for three or four years.

Their first-born son, Mark, was killed in 1973 in a motorcycle crash near the Capitol. He was 21 and working in an Exodus School program for juveniles who had dropped out of school, his father said.

Mark’s funeral was one of the first celebrated by Father Gracz after becoming pastor of the Decatur parish. He remembers how the church was filled, “people from city government, black and white, because they loved them. He (Mark) lived by the values that Dolores and Joe provided,” their strong sense of justice and their real love for people in need, values that were consistent, the priest said.

“Several of her children were involved in real outreach kind of jobs,” Sister Booms said. “it always seemed important that they lead deliberately simple lives.”

Joe Maschinot speaks of their sons and daughters with love and quiet pride. Jerry is a potter who has won prizes at the Arts Festival. David is a videotape editor with Channel 11 whose work has earned him a Georgia “Emmy” award. He and his wife Emma have three children. Mary Beth, an Emory graduate, is working on her master’s in clinical psychology at the University of Chicago.

John, a carpenter, is married to Sue Eveland. Michael is an actor who has appeared in “A Christmas Carol” several times. Carolyn Joe, called Carrie, is an Emory graduate teaching at Sts. Peter and Paul School, and Julie is a junior at St. Pius X High School.

One friend who reflected on Dolores’ life at the wake service, Agnes Driskell, said they met while Dolores was carrying Julie. For years they studied Scripture together in the Saint Vincent de Paul Circle of the parish Women’s Council.

“She worked for many years for Better Infant Births; she’d always been interested, and she worked for the layette collection program in the parish,” Mrs. Driskell said.

“She was a rather quiet person…and exceptionally dedicated…Joe and Dolores worked together very well and had a lot of friends…We’ll miss Dolores. She was a woman who thought deeply and shared so well. She didn’t just follow along.”

“They were a family that prayed together well,” Mrs. Driskell commented.

The family, daughter Carrie said, planned the wake, heeding their mother’s request for favorite music; Morning Has Broken,” a Mozart piece, and “Amazing Grace.” Beth shared thoughts of her mother. Love also spoke clearly in the prayers of the faithful written by the family and those spontaneously offered by friends.

Father Richard Wise, Sts. Peter and Paul pastor, celebrated the funeral Mass; Father Dave Kukielski, parochial vicar; Father Conroy, and Father Ray Horan were concelebrants. Deacons Larry French, Vince Bathea and Andy Farraca also took part.

Michael gave the first reading at the Mass, verses from the book of Ecclesiastes his mother had compiled as a Bible study assignment. “She loved the book,” Carrie said. And she chose the hymns, “On Eagles’ Wngs,” Hosea,” and “Change,” a spiritual, her daughter said.

The prayers for the faithful the family composed for the Mass were based on their mother’s involvement in and dedication to such justice and environmental groups as CALC, the Nuclear Freeze movement and Greenpeace. “We prayed for an end to racism and sexism in the Church and for the parish to grow stronger,” Carried added.

“She wanted to have a party after the funeral Mass,” the young woman said. It was held in the parish hall, “the Women’s Council took care of it.” The hall holds memories for the family. “So many years, so many parties there.”

Now Carrie is thankful that all her mother’s questions are answered, “About God, the world, anything.”

“She asked the hard questions of life even when the only available response was ‘Why not?’ or silence. And while she walked with her questions she worked on her answers; investing herself in life’s issues, in life issues of better infant births, or integrated living, of sexual equality, of economic justice, or peace on earth, of her church in her world, and of prayer,” Sister Booms told assembled family and friends at the wake service.”

“She would nudge and question, she just wouldn’t scream and shout” when an issue arose, according to Larry French, another friend. “She would question and examine.” She was able to put everything into a Christian perspective in her relations with people and organizations, he said. “They just lived the Gospel values of loving their neighbor. They were very justice-oriented, as were their children.”

French estimated there were 500 people at Dolores Maschinot’s funeral Mass. Most of them stayed for the party. There were, he said, “lots of tears – of sorrow and happiness.”

“People enjoying each other” was how Sister Booms described the party, just the way Dolores expected.

Barbara Walker and Dolores lived side by side on Cresta Drive for 16 years. Each was carrying a baby girl when they met.

“We always had fun,” Mrs. Walker remembered, even during their serious discussions of articles they had read on “children who were hungry, the homeless, racism, political issues, world peace.” Then they would laugh and tell each other they “had solved the world’s problems in five minutes,” Mrs. Walker said.

About 10 years ago, Dolores invited her neighbor to join the Saint Vincent de Paul Circle. “She was a good leader,” Mrs. Walker said. When she became too ill to function, Mrs. Walker, her co-leader, finished out the term.

Although the circle usually met at the church, the members brought the meeting to Dolores once in the last few months of her life.

In September, 1986, Mrs. Walker had a miscarriage while her husband was out of town. “I called Dolores at 2 a.m. She took me to Northside Hospital and stayed with me the whole time.” When her neighbor’s husband returned home, Mrs. Walker said Dolores reassured him by telephone that his wife was fine and to relax a bit from his long grueling trip before coming to the hospital.

Even when the emphysema grew worse “she never talked about her sickness, never talked about death, never complained,” Mrs. Walker said.

“She really loved the parish in all its transition,” her neighbor said.

Some years ago, the “white flight” from Sts. Peter and Paul “irritated us somewhat,” Joe Maschinot said. “We liked the parish, we wanted an integrated parish. We enjoyed it.”

“She was a loving, open witness to the racial transition of the parish,” Sister Tomlin said. “She had deep respect for black Catholics and their integration into the parish.”

“Their choice was to live in an integrated neighborhood. That was a value for her.” Sister Booms said.

Joe Maschinot retired from his position as office supervisor at Norfolk and Southern on Sept. 1 so his wife wouldn’t be alone. Carrie and Julie were back in school after being with her all summer.

“So many people did so much for her,” he said. Circle members took her to Emory University Hospital for radiation treatments every day for six weeks. The women brought in food, cleaned the house.

He had been hopeful when different treatments for the cancer seemed to help, but the emphysema grew worse. It was difficult for her to breathe. She was confined to her home for the last few weeks, Carrie said. Taken to Atlanta Hospital on Friday, Dec. 18, she died Tuesday, Dec. 22.

“When last I visited Dolores she spoke of her hope that others were praying in her name because she could not find words to pray anymore,” Sister Booms said at the wake service. “I listened, knowing full well that her life and her suffering were profound prayer beyond mere words. I rejoiced in hearing last evening that in her final days she finally came to know that God loved her and she was able to accept that love.”