A great week to turn 100

By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press

Born within days of each other, two Worcester Catholic women active in church-centered ministries were honored as they marked a century of life.
Antoinette “Ginger” (Murgo) Rinaldi, “kitchen director” at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish for years, waved from a Shrewsbury Street lot Sunday as firetrucks and well-wishers circled by, offering birthday greetings.
“That’s quite a drive just to come through the parking lot,” Mrs. Rinaldi told family members who traveled from New Jersey for the event. An estimated 70 vehicles participated in the birthday parade and other family checked in via the internet.
“I greet you with my prayers every morning,” she told family in California over an iPad.
“I’ll give you a hug next year when this … is over,” one well-wisher told her. “You and your husband were very good to us.”
“She’s just an inspiration to everybody … as you can see,” said her son Joseph Rinaldi, who planned the celebration with his wife, Carol, and brother and sister-in-law, Michael and Helen Rinaldi.
Meanwhile, members of the St. Rafqa Prayer Shawl Ministry at St. John Parish were making plans to celebrate with one of their members – Aurore Labbee – on Jan. 13, her 100th birthday.  They settled on cupcakes and a presentation of the key to the city on her porch.
Once a St. Joseph’s parishioner and now a member of Our Lady of Lourdes, where this knitting ministry started, she’s lived her whole life in the same house off Hamilton Street, she said. She and her husband, Arthur, now deceased, had no children. Her nephews live on the West Coast, and her niece in Connecticut helps her out. So do knitting ministry friends.

Where she was born

Mrs. Rinaldi lives in the house off Shrewsbury Street where she was born on Jan. 8, 1921. She and her husband, Salvatore “Sudsy” Rinaldi, now deceased, had two children, and now there are five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
“Everybody had a nickname in those days,” she said, when asked why she’s called Ginger. Her husband was dubbed “Sudsy” because swimmers at the Boys’ Club soaped him up, she said.
Michael Rinaldi said his parents served wherever needed.
“They couldn’t just go some place and enjoy themselves,” he said. “We always had some kind of commitment. It was part of who you were.”
Perhaps they were best known from their Italian parish, Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
“They ran the kitchen” at the parish center, said Joan D’Argenis, religious education director at Our Lady of Mount Carmel/Our Lady of Loreto Parish. “It was like Ginger and Sudsy’s kitchen.” They were part of whatever involved food– “and with Italians it always involves food.”
While much of the food they served was cooked by others, Michael Rinaldi’s wife, Helen, said her mother-in-law was known for her meatballs, pizzelles and blueberry pies and muffins.
Mrs. D’Argenis said the Rinaldis, with help from others, fed people at Chrism Mass luncheons, lectures, art exhibits, and Golden Years Club gatherings.
In 1999, when firefighters battled the Worcester Cold Storage fire and  searched the warehouse for missing companions, “my husband and I were asked if we would just take care of the families” at Mount Carmel’s center, Mrs. Rinaldi said. “You felt like you were part of the City of Worcester.… We didn’t know we were going to lose six. That was heartbreaking.” Among recognitions she has is one from the Red Cross, for that service. She’s also got a key to the city.
“She was like the behind-the-scenes director” at the parish center, while making you feel you were in charge, Mrs. D’Argenis said. “She knew everything that was going on. ... She’d scrub floors if she had to. Nothing was beneath her. She was a true Christian … Mount Carmel was put on the map, in a sense, because of people like Ginger.”
Mrs. D’Argenis also recalled lighter moments. Mrs. Rinaldi would join parish beach trips; until about 10 years ago “she’d jump the waves with us.”
“Her whole life was dedicated to church and family,” said Helen Rinaldi. She called Ginger “a wonderful grandmother,” always present for grandchildren’s sports and recognitions.
Michael Rinaldi said his mother misses the grandchildren, but looks at photos. She prays the rosary, reads her missal and walks down Shrewsbury Street, where people stop to talk to her. At St. John’s Cemetery, she knows where everyone’s buried.
Mrs. Rinaldi said what’s important is not her past service but what she’s doing now: she watches television Masses and prays.

 TV MASS AND Rosary

Mrs. Labbee also spoke of watching televised Masses and the rosary.
“I enjoy my faith and I believe in it,” she said.
She too has served and socialized through the church.
“We went to the knitting group and became friends,” said Lorna Chiras, who’s part of a three-some with Mrs. Labbee and group member Rita Lajeunesse. “Where better to meet than in a church?” She said Mrs. Labbee is “smart as a whip … very enjoyable to talk to … so spry for 100 years old.”
Constance Bartelson, shawl ministry coordinator, suggested they do something for Mrs. Labbee’s birthday, Mrs. Chiras said. So she called her district councilor, George Russell, to see about getting her friend a key to the city.
“I figured it’d be nice,” Mrs. Chiras said. “She’s 100 and she deserves it.” She said the councilor said to call the mayor’s office, which informed her that Mayor Joseph Petty wanted to present it himself. About 20 knitting ministry members also came. So did Father John Madden, St. John’s pastor.
The knitters pray for those who will receive their handiwork: shawls for people to wrap the sick or other people in, as a way of praying for them; blankets for babies’ baptismal garments, scarves for adults being baptized, and winterwear for St. John’s outreach to the homeless, Mrs. Bartelson said.
She said Mrs. Labbee joined the ministry around the time it started at Our Lady of Lourdes in 2005, moved with them to St. John’s a few years later, and overall made maybe 30 prayer shawls and 30 baptismal blankets.
“They were always so precise … very, very neatly done,” she said.
“I no longer can knit because my eyesight is very poor,” Mrs. Labbee said. “I suppose when you get to be 100, you’ve got to have something wrong.” She said she’s had good health.
Even after she stopped knitting “she’d come every month and be with us,” until they had stay home because of the coronavirus, Mrs. Bartelson said. “She loved to go to lunch (afterwards); it was her outing with the girls.” She called Mrs. Labbee “the sweetest, sweetest lady there ever was.”

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