Your Catholic Neighbor
Generosity is her recipe for life
Collier's baking talent brings smiles to parish members, retreatants
By Joanne Flemming
Compass Correspondent
MENASHA -- If one word could describe Theresa Collier and how she lives her life, it would have to be "giving." She best expresses that "giving" through the meals she plans and helps prepare either at home, through her job at Mount Tabor Retreat Center or St. John the Baptist Parish where she volunteers.
Collier stated that she learned to think of others first from her mother and at St. John the Baptist Grade School.
"My mother was very giving. She baked bread and gave it to everybody," she said. "She always had food for people. Mother was always entertaining people."
After Collier was married, she and a friend began cooking the monthly breakfasts for St. John's Holy Name Society. She recalled getting up at 4:30 a.m. to make scrambled eggs and bacon for those meals.
She helped plan and cook wedding dinners at the parish. She is in charge of the meals for its annual spring fest.
At Mount Tabor, she oversees meals for retreatants. If the meals are served on weekends, she recruits volunteers to help out. Because they are serving without pay, she volunteers along with them.
Collier, whose maiden name was Sarnowski, learned Polish cuisine from her mother. When four of her five children were attending St. Mary's High School, Menasha, she was one of the band mothers that helped prepare a dinner with German, Polish and Irish foods. She was in charge of the Polish-American Association dinner held in December at St. John's. The Sunday
before Ash Wednesday she and others make and sell paczki, a round, sugar-coated Polish doughnut served before Lent.
Collier explained that she got her paczki recipe from a fellow parishioner, not her mother. "My mother took all her recipes to heaven." The only one she left her daughter was for a chiffon cake.
She tries to make her home as welcoming as her mother did. She described it as a "homestead," because "it is the place where everyone comes."
Several years ago she and her husband Bob hosted a Global Outreach student from Slovakia attending St. Mary's Central. In 2005, the couple visited him and his family in Europe.
When Collier prepared plates of cookies and pumpkin bread for a recent visitor, the guest asked her not to fuss. "That's what this house does," Collier told her guest.
The house where she and Bob live was her grandmother's. It is next door to where she was born and raised.
Collier was one of seven siblings, two of whom died in childhood. She attended St. John's grade school and graduated from there in 1944. She remembered her kindergarten teacher, Sr. Sebastian, and saying her prayers in Polish in that class.
She attended St. Mary's High for one year, then transferred to Menasha High School. She graduated from there in 1948. She and Bob were married in April, 1951.
Collier's first job was at a Menasha knitting mill. She worked several years for Menasha Wood Split Pulley Company, first as secretary to the manager, then as manager.
She was doing "intermittent" work for Kimberly-Clark when she heard that Sr. Mary Jo Kirt, then head of Mount Tabor, was looking for a part-time secretary.
When she approached Sr. Mary Jo about the job, she asked Collier when she could start. "She didn't even look at my resume," Collier smiled.
She still does some secretarial work at the retreat center, but is involved most with meal preparation. She also recruits speakers for the Advent/Lenten programming and for the Janssen Forum.
Collier reported that she begins each day by saying, "Good morning, Jesus, Mary and Joseph. That's who I ask a lot of times for help."
She tries to get to church daily. She serves as a lector on weekdays and a Communion distributor on weekends.
She is president of the St. John's Rosary Society and a member of the parish worship committee.
"I like helping people," Collier said of her volunteer work. "I always feel that if you belong to something, you've got to do."
She has thought about retiring but has no special plans. "I'll just keep on giving and helping," she said, packing up a bag of cookies to send along with her guest.
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