St. Bernadette Parish at 50

Longtime parishioners remember Hollywood parish’s early years during anniversary Mass.

MARLENE QUARONI | FLORIDA CATHOLIC CORRESPONDENT

Posted: 06.14.09

Father James Quinn, St. Bernadette’s pastor from 1976 to 1986, poses with Dorothy Toth, an original parishioner who retired three years ago after working at the school and parish office for 33 years.

MARLENE QUARONI | FC
Father James Quinn, St. Bernadette’s pastor from 1976 to 1986, poses with Dorothy Toth, an original parishioner who retired three years ago after working at the school and parish office for 33 years.

WEST HOLLYWOOD | Dorothy Toth thought so much of the sisters teaching her children at St. Bernadette School that she named her youngest daughter after two of them.

“The principal was named Mother Marie and my son’s eighth-grade teacher was named Sister Helen, so when my daughter was born we named her Helen Marie,” said Toth, who attended the 50th anniversary Mass May 24 for St. Bernadette Parish. The Mass was offered for her husband, Al Toth.

All five of her children, three daughters and two sons, attended St. Bernadette School. The tradition continued with four out of five of her grandchildren. However, by the time her youngest children and grandchildren were attending the school, the Passionist Nuns of Our Lady of Sorrows had returned to their home in Mexico City and St. Bernadette had become the first Catholic school in the Archdiocese of Miami to have an all-lay faculty. Students were taught in portable classrooms until a permanent building was constructed in 1978.

Toth remembered when her husband and other parishioners went out collecting $2 “coupons” from a booklet distributed to all parishioners of the newly formed parish to build a church on the 17-acre site at 7450 Stirling Road.

“Father Robert Hostler, the founding pastor, got the idea for the ‘burn-a-debt’ coupons,” said Toth. “Within a few years we were able to build the church and pay off the debt on the new church building, which opened in 1961.”

Although she moved to Plantation 30 years ago, Toth still attends Mass at St. Bernadette.

“This is my home,” said Toth, who retired three years ago after working at the school and parish office for 33 years.

Throughout the years, several pastors have served at St. Bernadette: Father Hostler, Father Larking Connolly, Father Anthony Chapanis, Father Matthew Grehan, Father James Quinn and Father Francis Lyons.

Father Brendan Dalton, St. Bernadette’s current pastor, said much has changed since the parish was established in 1959.

“Stirling Road was a dirt road,” he said referring to the now six-lane highway in front of the church. “Much will change in the next 50 years.”

The crucifix on the wall above the altar was the inspiration of Father Hostler, he added.

“It’s very striking,” Father Dalton said. “Father Hostler saw the crucifix of Limpias in Spain and decided to have a duplicate made for his new church. If any of you kids are at St. Bernadette’s 100th anniversary Mass in 2059, please say a prayer for those of us who were here in 2009.”

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