Church’s Black History celebration has past of its own

Mother Seton Parish in Germantown has roots in farmhouse services

Charles E. Shoemaker⁄The Gazette Joshua Sommerville, 17, of Gaithersburg leads the audience in song from his seat at Mother Seton Parish in Germantown on Sunday. His grandmother, Hannah Turner, 87, was one of the original members of St. Rita’s Group, which worked to make Mass accessible for black Catholics in Germantown in the 1930s. Featured Jobs Loading...

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The 16th annual musical event, this year called ‘‘Keep the Dream Alive,” was put together by the St. Rita’s Society, a church organization that kept faith alive for blacks in Germantown more than 50 years ago.

The group began in the 1920s as a way for black Catholics in the then-rural community to organize rides to Sunday Mass since only a few had cars, according to Dorrette Paulin, president of St. Rita’s and organizer of the Black History Month event. They formally came together in 1935 with the help of a priest at St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church in Gaithersburg as St. Rita’s Group, named after the saint of the impossible who struggled against adversity. They began holding weekly services closer to home.

‘‘The black community during those days, they had no place to practice their faith,” Paulin said last week.

A wealthy white landowner, Sophie Baker, let the group use her Germantown farm for Sunday Mass, said Terri Sommerville of Gaithersburg, whose mother, 87-year-old Hannah Turner, was an original member of St. Rita’s. Baker and the visiting priests taught Turner Latin so she could follow along with the services, and she in turn instructed the group’s altar boys. Mass was hardly a piecemeal affair – the altar boys wore cassocks that were often made or mended by St. Rita’s members and the priests brought candles and chalices for the communion wine.

‘‘Everyone has to make their own marks in life, everyone has to make their own proud moments, but I’m so proud of her for being so steadfast when things seemed so impossible,” Terri Sommerville said of her mother.

At least 12 large families were among the original members, Sommerville said.

‘‘It ended up being more of a social support-type group because there were original members of that group who were not Catholic,” said Sommerville, whose three older sisters belonged to St. Rita’s. The group disbanded in 1946 after Baker, often referred to as ‘‘Miss Sophie,” died, Sommerville said. By that time many in the black community had cars and were able to drive to Mass at St. Martin’s and at St. Rose of Lima in Gaithersburg.

Mother Seton Parish was established in 1975 and operated out of a small rented house near the train station, and services were held at Germantown Elementary School and Seneca Valley High School until the church moved to its Father Hurley Boulevard property in 1981, Paulin said. St. Rita’s was revived as St. Rita’s Society in 1995 by the Rev. Milton Jordan, a former Mother Seton pastor, as a social committee for adult parishioners.

Turner and another original member, 98-year-old Hannah Plummer of Germantown, attended the Black History community celebration on Sunday, which is St. Rita’s premier event. The festivities featured multi-denominational gospel music from local churches as well as groups from Prince George’s County. The audience sang and clapped with the singers and live band and enjoyed refreshments and conversations with friends and neighbors. Among the performers were Sommerville’s children, Joshua, 17, and Caelyn, 13.