By PAMELA HAYES REHLEN
On Aug. 15, 1958, when she was 16 years old, Mary Jo Mulligan entered the elegant, Italianate, music-oriented Villa Walsh Convent, close to her home in Morristown, N.J. There she finished her high schooling, developed her vocal skills and began to teach.
In 1968, during the tumultuous post-Vatican II years, she left this warm, formerly-safe harbor. But she carried away and brought with her to Vermont two vocations which would shape the rest of her life, service and singing.
Mary Jo came by her singing naturally. She was one of three talented Mulligan sisters whose grandmother, Peggy Dunn Mulligan, sang on the radio in New York City. The girls all took voice lessons, and never failed to harmonize together on car trips. They sang at family gatherings and community functions.
Mary Jo came out of the religious life to an altered world. Her close knit family had moved north to Vermont. In the late-60s, her father John Mulligan bought what was then called Winston’s Inn – later, The Dog – at the south end of Lake Bomoseen.
He ran this inn, worked as town manager, as selectman and as state representative. Later he bought Uncle Charlie’s, a long time gathering place for summer lake people near Crystal Beach, and renamed it Captain John’s Dockside.
Mary Jo arrived to be with her family. She had been teaching in the New Jersey parochial school system. Now, she got her Vermont certification from Castleton State College and in 1969, began teaching sixth grade at Castleton Elementary School. She would continue there for 30 years, retiring in 2002.
Mary Jo was high spirited and good natured, a convent-bred party girl, and, as she would say, a true Mulligan. She sang every Friday night at her father’s inn. With Kathleen Quinn accompanying her at the piano, she sang for riotous St. Patrick’s Day parties at Captain John’s Dockside.
She sang for Dr. Aborn in Castleton State College shows. She soloed at St. John’s Catholic Church in Castleton. Charging $25, mostly to cover her expenses, she began to sing at weddings and funerals.
In 1970, she met Roy Knapp. Roy was 11 years older; a local boy whose parents had a big farm in Hubbardon. Roy was divorced with six children ranging in age from 6 to late-teens. It was the “Sound of Music” all over again. They married. Mary Jo helped raise Roy’s family, and the couple had two children of their own – a son Lance, who’s moved to Arizona, and a daughter Shauna, a teacher in Brandon.
Presently, the Knapps live in Fair Haven in a little house as immaculate as any convent. The walls and carpet are white, and the place is full of pictures of family.
Five years ago, Roy was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. He goes to the Interage adult day program at the Maples in Rutland. A bus picks him up each morning at 9:30. Mary Jo checks his pockets and speaks to the bus driver, who was once her pupil. She ruefully acknowledges that her husband’s become a little schoolboy.
When she has hard days at home, she finds that singing is the most wonderful therapy. “I get so lost in the music,” she confesses. Mary Jo says she’s blessed in her singing. She knows there will come a time when she no longer has a voice, but that time seems far off. She laughs that she has more voice now that she’s stopped teaching.
For years Mary Jo has been singing at weddings and funerals in Proctor, Pittsford, Poultney, Granville, Castleton and Fair Haven. She was always on call for Sister Pauline, the choir director at Christ the King Church in Rutland.
All of the local funeral directors contact her when they need a soloist. Years ago, she sang for several weddings each Saturday, but these days, she’s finding that fewer couples are getting married in churches. However, she’s also prepared to sing in fields and on beaches.
Before a funeral, Mary Jo says. “I pray to the Blessed Mother. I pray that I can bring peace. I try to reach out.”
Before a wedding, which she says is such a joyful time for her, she looks at, and concentrates on, the couple; she hopes that they are really hearing her heartfelt lyrics.
She knows that over the years she’s brought a lot to the community, and she must have often done something right. Her next door Furnace Street neighbors are Ann and Doug Howard. She laughs wonderingly and says she sang at their wedding at St. Mary’s in Fair Haven 32 years ago.
Pamela Hayes Rehlen is a writer who’s grateful to have lived almost all of her life in Castleton. She is the author of “The Blue Cat and the River’s Song.”
