Call it a quest for convenience and a desire to perpetuate their faith.

Back when trolley cars or your feet were the usual way to get to school, a group of people from this city took on the task of building their own parish. It would start in 1926 with a "makeshift church" in what today is Falcon Hall on Central Street, a temporary location to hold Mass while a permanent structure was built around the corner.

With the creation of a parish church, the natural addition of a school and convent soon followed. The city’s children would no longer have to walk or take the trolley to St. Michael School in Derby. Such was the beginning of the church that was named for a patron saint of carpenters and of all workers, St. Joseph.

In a sense, the 218 families of early parishioners were carpenters themselves. They built a solid foundation of community which they have continued to fortify over the years. It was a group effort from the word ‘Go".

Everybody chipped in, and when the money was counted they had collected $1,442.00. This was the seed money toward a purchase price of $6,000.00, which eventually bought the parish a parcel of land on Jewett Street, said Helen Ptak, a longtime parishi9oner.

The school opened in 1926 with 396 children in grades one through eight. The first pastor, Rev. Aloysius Zieleznik, a missionary priest, was called back to Poland and replaced by Rev. Joseph Janowski in 1929. "He was the one that saw all this potential." Ptak said, Janowski’s vision led to a 1933 purchase of 34.6 acres on Pulaski Highway the future sit of Warsaw Park.

The park bearing a name that proudly identified St Joseph’s parish with its ethnic background would host many activities through the years that stand as a legacy of community.

Girl Scouts came from Brooklyn, NY to camp there. A pavilion provided the setting for countless picnics. The dance hall did double duty, sometimes serving as a rollerskating rink, other times hosting Polka banks from all over the east coast that would pack’em in . Then there were the annual "sport nights" for seven years parishioners Tony Roginel and others would arrange the event, bringing professional athletics like Green Bay Packers greats Bart Starr and Bob Skoronski to the Valley.

The park has even seen the likes of political heavyweights such as President Bush, who popped in for a luncheon during his 1992 campaign.

The park, while a source of financial benefit to St. Joe’s has generated a valuable asset for the community as well, it has provided ample opportunity to forge friendships that cross town lines. It has been an extension of St. Joseph’s Parish a way of keeping people together.

The flock of parishioners at St. Joe’s now is tended by current pastor the Rev. Marek Sobczak, who said the people are what keeps the parish alive. Most have lived here since the parish was born. They give, he said, their time. their effort, their love to the parish.

"They simply do whatever is necessary to keep this parish going," he said. "It ‘s a very pleasant, warm church, and we are so small, but one big family".

The way the parish has survived is rooted in its beginnings: hardworking people with a common faith and a desire to be together.

St. Joseph’s will celebrate its 75^th jubilee in 2001. You can bet the church will be around for that, and then some.