When the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) created the community of Dennison in Tuscarawas County in 1864 as a site for repair shops and a watering stop, the Catholic Church was there from the start.
Many railroad workers were Catholics from Ireland and eastern Europe, so a priest from nearby Dover visited their homes to celebrate Sunday Masses. Crowds for the Masses grew so large that they were moved to a banquet hall.
By 1871, a small red-brick church had been built in the community under the patronage of Mary, the Immaculate Conception. Father William Hawe was appointed as its first resident pastor by Bishop Sylvester Rosecrans, the first bishop of Columbus.
That church building, with additions built in 1880 and 1916, has been well-maintained over the years and still stands at 206 N. First St. On Wednesday, Dec. 8, its patronal feast day, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Dennison Immaculate Conception Church will celebrate its 150th anniversary with Masses at 8:15 a.m. for children of the parish school and 7 p.m. for the community, followed by a reception.
Father Jeff Coning, pastor of the church and of New Philadelphia Sacred Heart and Zoar Holy Trinity churches, will be the celebrant. Father T.J. Lehigh, who grew up in the parish and is pastor of the Perry County Consortium of Catholic Churches, will be on hand, and other diocesan priests who have served the parish also have been invited, as have women religious from the parish. In addition, an anniversary video is being produced.
“It is an honor to be at service to the people of Immaculate Conception,” Father Coning said. “Their faith in God is deep, and their love for God and the Church is strong. They have been kind to me and the priests that have been assigned to the parish.”
Dennison has a population of about 2,600, about half of what it was when it reached its peak 100 years ago when the railroad was flourishing, but the parish, which has about 650 families, remains vibrant. Its members, many of them descendants of families who came to Dennison with the PRR, are proud of its legacy and especially of the school, which has existed since 1891.
“We’re a strong parish,” said Bernadette Blackstone, a parishioner since 1950. “I call it a parish of survivalists in that we’ve survived all the good and bad times of the last 150 years and have always had a solid core of people who have good rapport. Don’t ever count us out. We’ll always come back.
“The school especially holds us together,” she said. “Many of the students are the children and grandchildren of former students here, and many of the teachers also went to school here.”
“Several of us on the staff have been here for more than 20 years after graduating from eighth grade here and going on to (Tuscarawas) Central Catholic (High School in New Philadelphia),” said school secretary Ava DelGallo. “Dennison is a place where tradition and pride are passed on through generations, and it shows in the school.”
Immaculate Conception School (which, like the church, is often referred to locally as “St. Mary’s”) is part of the Tuscarawas Central Catholic (TCC) school system, along with TCC Elementary School in Dover and the high school in New Philadelphia. Matt Ritzert is principal of the two elementary schools.
“We and the TCC schools are known in the area for our academic excellence,” said Immaculate Conception sixth-grade teacher Tricia Love, who has been associated with the school as either teacher or parent for 29 years. “Our children tend to test well, and parents readily see how well-prepared they are. But we consider our academic excellence second to the strong Catholic identity we try to impart.”
“People are frequently complimentary when they see how well-behaved our students are,” said preschool and pre-kindergarten teacher Ronna Coventry. “I’ve often heard people say, ‘You can tell the St. Mary’s kids because of the way they show people respect.’”
“That positive impact is one of the reasons the school has stayed strong because it’s brought in more non-Catholic students,” said Michelle Wright, who teaches second grade and conducts classes on the sacraments and religion for multiple grades.
The school has a total enrollment of 131 students, with 93 in kindergarten through sixth grade and 38 in pre-school or pre-kindergarten. In 2012, when The Catholic Times last visited the school for a story, it had 83 students, including 65 in kindergarten through sixth grade. Love said an increase in the number of non-Catholic students is mainly responsible for the school’s growth in the past nine years.
Students attend an all-school Mass every Thursday at 8:15 a.m., as well as prayer services during Advent and the Stations of the Cross during Lent. This year, they began what is planned to be a continuing event honoring first responders on Sept. 29, the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel, patron of police officers and military personnel.
There also was a prayer service to mark the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. “We tie everything secular to the Catholic faith that we possibly can,” Love said.
Students recently took part in a Thanksgiving canned food drive for the Twin City Food Pantry in nearby Uhrichsville and for many years have been part of the Share-A-Christmas program of the Tuscarawas County Council for Church and Community. This ecumenical group helps the needy during the holidays by providing food, clothing and toys.
Coventry said students at the school have packed COVID bags filled with items such as note pads, candy and toiletry items for the homebound and nursing home residents. They also have visited nursing homes when permitted to do so by health restrictions and have sent cards and gift bags to the military.
Parish activities were eliminated or curtailed because of COVID for most of 2020 but have gradually resumed this year. “One of the things people missed most was our summer festival in July,” said parishioner Marlene Ridgway.
Longtime parishioners say the festival’s history goes back to at least the 1940s. “We weren’t sure how many people would come (in 2021), but the response was phenomenal. People were just so happy to be there,” Ridgway said.
“It was a little hard to get volunteers, but the people who did work the festival were so committed,” said parish member Vicki Dominick. “Students, parents, organizations – they all pitched in. That shows the caring nature of our parish.”
“One thing I’ve seen change over the years in the parish has been our willingness to do community outreach,” Blackstone said. “It seems like it used to be that people felt that to be Catholic, it was enough to go to Mass on Saturday and Sunday and lock the doors the rest of the week.
“Now, with the encouragement of the parish Altar Society and the Knights of Columbus, our main outreach groups, the parish has been more involved with things like visiting nursing homes, having food drives and working at the food pantry and other types of community service. I think that’s easier to do in a small community like ours, where people can readily see the effects of helping others.”
The Altar Society, the parish’s principal women’s group, meets every month and assists in a number of ways, such as serving at bereavement dinners, providing candles and flowers for the altar and vestments for priests, repairing chalices, sending cards to the sick and cooperating with Knights of Columbus Council 576 in various projects.
The Knights council is the third-oldest in the Diocese of Columbus, dating back to the late 1800s, and one of the few that still operates its own hall. The hall hosts weekly bingo games and activities, including steak dinners, to benefit the Tuscarawas Catholic schools and the Birthright pregnancy assistance organization, as well as wedding receptions and other events.
The council also raises money for several charities, with special emphasis on the state K of C’s annual Measure Up campaign for the developmentally disabled. The council’s Measure Up funds go mainly to support St. John’s Villa, about 20 miles from Dennison.
The church’s two anniversary Masses will include music from the school choir in the morning and evening, and the adult choir, with violin and trumpet accompaniment, in the evening. Parish music activities are led by Rosemary Zorzi, who has been either a music teacher at the school or the parish music director for 45 years.
“COVID was such a blow to all choirs because it stopped us from singing,” she said. “Our choir used to practice every Thursday and sing on the second and fourth Sundays of the month. Now we practice once a month and sing on the fourth Sunday, as well as at special events like Christmas and the anniversary Mass.
“It’s a shame we’re so limited because this church has acoustics that are really made for a choir and that seem to have gotten better as the church has gotten older.”
Over the years, at least 12 sons of the parish have become priests, including Father Lehigh and Father William A. Metzger, pastor of Columbus Our Lady of Victory Church.
Many women of the parish have become religious sisters, including Sister Wilma Ross, SCN, now living in retirement with the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, Kentucky after serving Columbus St. Ladislas Church and School for 58 years.
The Diocesan Council of Catholic Women honored two women from the parish – Lulu Benedetto in 1998 and Zetta Blickensderfer in 2003 – as its Catholic Woman of the Year.
Dennison’s location was responsible for its creation by the PRR. Because it’s about 100 miles from Columbus, Pittsburgh and Cleveland, the railroad found it to be an ideal location where trains could be repaired or take on water. The town was named for William Dennison, Ohio’s governor from 1860 to 1862.
By 1920, the town had 12,000 people, the rail shops employed 2,100, and another 1,500 worked in nearby plants that made sewer pipe and brick from the area’s abundant clay.
World War II brought Dennison national recognition and the nickname “Dreamsville.” Soldiers going off to war or coming home from combat gave it that name because the Salvation Army set up a canteen at its railroad station, where PRR trains would stop so soldiers could receive sandwiches, cookies and coffee from women volunteers. The soldiers said seeing those women reminded them of the wives, mothers and girlfriends back home they dreamed about.
The canteen served about 1.5 million soldiers during the war. The station eventually fell into disuse after the last passenger train stopped in Dennison in 1968 and the last freight train stopped in 1982.
But the building has been restored as a museum and was designated in 2012 by the National Park Service as a national historic landmark. It includes exhibits on Dennison’s role in World War II, a model railroad and a display of several railroad cars. The museum is running a Polar Express train for families during the holiday season.
Masses at Immaculate Conception Church are celebrated at 5 p.m. Saturdays, 11 a.m. Sundays and 8:15 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. A prayer Cenacle (group) meets every other Monday at 6 p.m., and the church hosts Eucharistic Adoration on Tuesdays from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.
For more information about the church, go to www.icdennison.com or call (740) 922-3533.