A few weeks ago a guy came into the NJ National Guard museum at Sea Girt with a couple of boxes of WWII material that had belonged to his deceased neighbor. It included pictures, manuals, photos, books, a helmet, and other miscellaneous stuff. I had some of our volunteers log in the photos and put them in mylar to preserve them. Today I randomly picked up one photo -- a small group of officers sitting around a table. The back was marked with the names of the officers, and the location -- Anzio, 1944. The second name struck me -- Father Carney. I turned it over again and it was him -- the old pastor of St. Rose. I remembered that we were told that he had been a WWII chaplain. Talk about random luck!

In the 'Small World Department', Father Carney was an uncle of Ed Langan, my lifelong friend from the early 1940's. Ed was a fellow No. 7th Street neighbor from Roseville, and my Best Man in 1959. While Ed is not on the Bodholts member list, he does tune in periodically to reminisce with places and faces, as do I. Ed is also acquainted with my friend John Rountree and brother-in-law Bob Bowell - both friends of Joe Bilby. Ed is now a widower and currently resides in Flanders, NJ.

Indeed a small world. Of course I know Bob and John well, and have for years. :-)

John C.

I will scan that picture for you if you so desire. I sent an email to you to that effect, but somehow it got returned as SPAM.

Joe

Thanks, Joe -- I will happily post a photo of Big Al, as my dad called him. And I shall adjust my spam filter. By the way, I resent the application of the name Spam to junk mail. Spam is a delicious product that we all should keep in our pantries.

Joe, my uncle was in Anzio and lost part of a hand there. He was with the Rangers. His name was Lou Cashen. Does he show up anywhere?

John, I will get that off to you once I scan it.

Phyllis, no mention of your uncle. The backmark on the photo lists the names of the seven other people in the photo and state that it was taken at the "Factory Area, Anzio, June 1, 1944." I will pass on the names of the folks in the picture when I send it.

Joe, As a young student at SRL I remember hearing that Father Carney was at Anzio during WWII and that he also had won The Silver Star while serving there. It wasn't until many years later that I realized how impressive this feat was, especially for a Chaplain. I do know that Anzio was one of the worst campaigns during WWII. Is there any way to confirm this story? BD

Well, we certainly have proof that he was there now,for sure. Could this be another "Hidden History" story? Let me research the silver star story and see what I come up with.

No silver star. But I am looking to see if there is some story there. Does anyone recall Carney's first name?

Aloysius S. Carney. St. Peter's Prep, 1922

The Anzio picture of Carney is on the way John. I also sent it through Dan in case I get rejected as SPAM again.

I put one of my best researching friends on the rest of the story. He is a professional genealogist and also a St. Peter's Prep grad, so maybe we will come up with something interesting.

Thanks, Joe. I dunno why you get spammed from my end. Anyway, here's that photo. All of us St. Rose folks will recognize Big Al:



Back of photo:



And in later years:

I remember reading a book about the German stigmatic Threasa Newman and in that book was a full length pictur of
Fr Carney in complete BDU with gas mask carrier. He had visited her some time latter in the war.

Interesting, Joe. In that photo, was he showing her a list of objectionable films?

Big Al made quite an impression. I remember all of us jumping to our feet when he came into our room to hand out report cards. "Good morning, Monsignor Carney!" we all sang like nervous little birds. He was liberal in his commentary, as well, when performing that duty. I never had to endure his obloquoy, but the poor bastards who got a U on their report cards got the riot act read to them. I remember one kid, whom I won't name here, pissed himself when he was walking up to get his card.

It was seventh grade, I think, when Big Al took a brody off the altar. It was the day of the week for our class the go to morning Mass. This was back when the priest faced the altar. So Carney was in the middle of Mass -- I'll never forget it -- he was standing straight as an arrow, and he just flopped backwards, down the steps of the altar, landing on his head. It happened very fast; I remember his green chasuble fluttering on the way down. A couple men jumped the altar rail and went to his aid. After a few minutes he got up and insisted on resuming Mass. But a few minutes later he started collapsing again, and he was taken away in an ambulance. Everybody in the church was just freaked out. He was back at it a few days later, though. My classmates will remember this.

Johnny, I believe he was holding a copy of the Advocate and telling her not to attend any movies at the Tivoli until he had time to buy it and turn it into a bingo hall. Oh well, gambling over sex anyday.

Here's what I got from my researcher friend:

Your Fr Carney was born in Harrison, NJ in 1903, I also confirmed Prep class of 1922 in a newspaper article. He was active in the NJ Catholic War Veterans as their chaplain. I have attached the stories I found on him serving in that capacity after WWII. As noted, he died in 1988. Unfortunately his Obit is not online, the nephew's is, no mention of the uncle or name sake. The Star Ledger online obits start at Jan 1, 1989, a few months shy of his death. Obits usually give a capsulated history of the person and I find that's a good starting point, especially when trying to track down relatives, which I have done for people in the past.



If you would want to pursue it I suggest find a library with the Star Ledger on microfilm which has 1988, I can get the exact date of death for you, but from that link of Silver Star winners, it's obvious it is a limited number of recipients - 36 total and Fr Carney is not on it.

A little trivial addendum regarding Father Carney's family. Father Carney had a brother who was a Judge, and who lived in Kearney with his wife Florence. Somewhere around mid-1957, Ed Langan, myself and another recently 'discharged' Korean veteran decided that we should get together with our G.I. Bill benefits and go into business. After consulting with Ed's uncle Judge Carney, we were talked out of pursuing the endeavor.

What we wanted to do was build a bowling alley, on Eagle Rock Avenue up top of First Mountain, up the hill from the traffic light by Pals Cabin. We didn't go for it, somebody else did, in the same location, and it's still there. Oh well!

When this posting came out I was watching "An Officer and a Movie" on the History Channel and the guest officer explained how his group is in the process of assembling an on-line database of all the citation text for all medals above a bronze star. It's possible to get that information now, but it seems that nobody had organized it through web links.

I had also heard that Big Al won the silver star, but maybe we never let the truth stand in the way of a good story all those years. There was a banister bookcase either in the basement of the church or rectory that had lots of pictures of Msgr Carney in uniform, some war memorabilia, and I think some of his medals.

JC, if Big Al was facing the altar for mass it was probably around '64 or so?, before they "about faced" the mass. Our class was probably the last set of altar boys who learned to serve the mass in Latin with Foot Prayers and such: (Ad deum qui laetificat juventutem meam)

But Msgr Carney insisted on saying mass every morning on the "side altar" in Latin, even after the switch. As the older altar boys graduated, the few of us "Latin" guys that were left became a valuable commodity to the pastor. He didn't know my name, but he knew I could say the Latin mass... so I'd get picked for the "quickie"... he didn't say that mass for the general congregation, he just wanted to say mass every morning.

We would line up to go out on the altar behind the other priest and altar boys who were going to say the main mass. Then we'd slip right over to the "side" altar and fly through the Latin mass. No communion except for his and mine, and we'd be done in a flash. We kept tabs on the record (about 14 minutes). I loved it because I could shoot down to Bodholt's afterward for English Muffins and Hot Chocolate 25c, and still make it back before Sr. Gertrude's bell.

One time Msgr Carney finished pretty quick but just stood there. Turns out that he didn't synchronize his mass well and he had finished at exactly the same time that the main mass was starting the Consecration. He seemed ticked that we had to just stand there and wait. His masses got even faster after that.

Remember those morning masses before school? Did they start with First Friday? Then wasn't each class assigned a day of the week? Then they wanted us to go every day during May (Our Lady)...then June (the month of the Sacred Heart), etc. etc. Some of us caught on quickly and became Patrol Boys (who didn't have to go to any of them). Safety First!

Mea Maxima Culpa

Jonesy, You memory is exemplary! I only remember 9am Mass every Sunday, while school was in session. Maybe it was because I was a Patrol Boy, that we didn't have to attend Mass? Great stories my friend! Keep them coming!!!! BD

Basement Mass at 6:30 AM. Would get a crowd too. He would come to
the church from the Rectory through the tunnel. Saw a Dracula movie the day before at the Plaza, Sunday morning he scared the living s**t out
of us when he opened the door. Helloooooooooooo Belaaaaaa.

I can remember only once when I served as altar boy for Carney. A couple times I was slow in my response, and he just went ahead and delivered my lines for me! Generally I was pretty good with my Latin and used the "cheat sheet" infrequently, but there was always extra pressure when serving with Big Al. Regarding the tunnel between the rectory and lower church, I remember exploring it a couple times. I always wondered why it had been deemed necessary. I mean, it's perhaps 20 steps from the rectory to the church!

The tunnel was secure in bringing the days "bounty"
home. You would only see Fr Stone smoking outside. Others used the tunnel. You could have card games in the basement. Remember it was
some time before our parish needed "Bingo" as a fundraiser. Besides the collections, remember, the ushers manned box's at the top of the aisles
25 cents to sit.

Sometimes I wondered what those "special collections" were in aid of.

Johnny, as I understand it, the "special collections" that were taken on I believe "All Souls Day" were actually divided up later on in the rectory. The lion's share went to mnsr. carney and the priests divided up the rest between them. They used it as their bonus for the year.

Yikes! What a racket.

This jarred a memory - I do recall going to Mass with your classes on a assigned day- Monday was the 4th grade, Tue 5th etc...
I seem to recall one Tues at 8:00am, some kid was goofing off and Father O'Leary turned around and went after the kid thru the altar rail - scared the bejesus out of the whole class! Regina Rose was there and marched the kid out...for the life of me I don't remember who it was.

Anyone remember First Fridays when we had to fast --so we got to go home for breakfast?

That poor kid Laura was never heard from again.
They took him out through "The Tunnel"............

Fact is we never knew where any of that special collection money went. :-) Nice work if you could get it, I guess. :-)

Back in the 50's my father was on some sort of finance committe at SRL and I remember hearing him say that Msgr Gormley had left the church in good shape and that Congoleum Nare couldnt vote withput SRL's proxey. Wonder what ever happend to that paper?

Congoleum Nare?

Congoleum Nairn was a linoleum manufacturer in Kearny.

Gormley is in my graduation picture. I think he died within the year. I remember that when we were altar boys the rumor was that he owned race horses in Ireland. Not a personable man, to be sure. :-)

I graduated from SRL in 1960 and I don't remember going to a daily Mass unless it was 1st Friday or another special day. Only as an altarboy were we assigned a daily mass for a week at a time including Saturday and Sunday. What years did you go to SRL? I went from 1952 to 1960.

From 1956-1965. I believe when Sr. Gertrude James arrived as new principal in '61 or so she instituted the accelerated Mass regimen. She was always marching us over there. She was a real pill.