Member of the first First Friday Club still going after 67 years

By William T. Clew

The Catholic Free Press

When Sam Belluardo of West Boylston was 32, his boss, Bart Murphy, brought him to a meeting of the diocesan First Friday Club.
That was in 1950, the year the club was started by Bishop John J. Wright, soon after the formation of the Worcester Diocese. Now, 67 years later, Mr. Belluardo is still a member, the only original member still in the club. 
He’s also a faithful member. It fact, in the 67 years he has been a member, he has missed no more than about six meetings, he said. He also has been a member of the Fitchburg Council, Knights of Columbus for 76 years.
Mr. Belluardo is 99. 
The First Friday Club of the Worcester Diocese is a group of men who meet on the first Friday of each month (except June, July and August) for Mass, breakfast and a speaker.   
The first meetings were held Fridays at noon at Putnam and Thurston’s Restaurant on Mechanic Street. There was Mass, followed by lunch, Mr. Belluardo said. He said there were 35 to 40 members.
When Putnam and Thurston’s closed, the meetings were moved, still at noon and still with Mass and lunch, to the Eden Gardens on Franklin Street. The club then moved to the John Powers Center and later moved its meetings again, this time to what Mr. Belluardo called the Sisters of Mercy House on High Street, across from St. Paul Cathedral.
By this time, he said, membership had fallen to about 15, and the First Friday Club seemed to be on its last legs.
And then, he said, “Jack Monahan (John J. Monahan) came along and resurrected it.” Mr Belluardo is emphatic about Mr. Monahan’s role in saving the club.
“I can’t say enough about Jack Monahan. He is Mr. First Friday. If it were not for Jack, there would be no First Friday Club today,” Mr. Belluardo said. 
The club moved its meetings to the 20th floor of the Worcester County National Bank building and the membership began to grow. As it grew, the club moved again, this time to the DCU Center, where it is today. It now has more than 200 members, Mr. Belluardo said, of whom 128 attended the last meeting. The meetings are held at 8 a.m. now, followed by breakfast. And Mr. Monahan is club president.
Mr. Belluardo still drives, and until this year he chauffeured his friends to the club’s monthly meetings. Now he get a ride. He said his driving days will end next May, when he’ll be 100. Then, he said, he plans to give up his driver’s license and give away his car.
“I’ve been driving for 84 years,” he said, “and I’ve never had an accident. And, more remarkably, nobody has ever hit me.”
Mr. Belluardo was born in Brattleboro, Vt., and grew up in Fitchburg. After high school he attended Becker Junior College, now a four-year college. He said he commuted to Becker in Worcester by bus. The bus pass cost $18 a month, he said, and the annual tuition at Becker was $180. He said he paid with wages from summer jobs.
He graduated in 1938 and, unlike many others during the Great Depression of the 1930s, he got a job as an accountant. It was offered to him a month before he graduated from Becker by Mr. Murphy. Later, when Mr. Murphy became a member of the newly formed diocesan First Friday Club, he invited Mr. Belluardo to a meeting.
“I’ve been going ever since,” Mr. Belluardo said.
Mr. Belluardo married and he and his wife, Helen, had two sons, James and John. When James was 5  and John was not quite 4, Helen, 37, died. 
Mr. Belluardo raised both his sons, with help while he was at work. Both boys attended Assumption Preparatory School. James went on to college, did graduate work at Harvard, and is an architect in New York. John joined the Marines and now is retired.
Nineteen years after his wife died,  Mr. Belluardo married Mary Herring who had previously been a Sister of St. Joseph for 21 years.  Her name in religion was Sister William Terese, SSJ. She taught in the Springfield Diocese  in  North Adams, Pittsfield, Holyoke and at Cathedral High School in Springfield. 
When the Worcester Diocese was formed out of the Springfield Diocese, she and two other sisters were asked to come to Worcester to teach religious education classes.
After leaving the SSJ congregation she worked at Springfield Technical Community College, at Mount Wachusett Community College and, for 15 years, in business administration at Quinsigamond Community College.
The Belluardos live in a neat home with a well-kept yard in West Boylston.  For many years, until about 5 years ago, he was a eucharistic minister at Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish. He said he still serves funeral Masses.
He said that for 30 years he brought Holy Communion to three nursing homes, but now has cut back to just one. He attends Mass every morning and leads a rosary prayer group after Mass. Mrs. Belluardo volunteers at Notre Dame Long Term Care Center and sometimes attends Mass there, he said. Otherwise, they attend Mass together at Our Lady of Good Counsel.
And, for those people who want to know the secret to his longevity, he has the answer, short and direct.
“There is no secret to longevity,” he said with a little smile. “It’s just bad luck.”