by Brian Flagg
Fr. David Innocenti started it, George Pettit,
Jerry Skalet and I, among others, have literally put
the food on the table every day for the last 25 years,
but the inspiration and spiritual backbone of the
place, from day 1, has been Jerry Robinett and his
late wife Ellie.
Jerry is a living example of what it means to be a
real Christian, Catholic, non-violent man. Anyone
who has ever donated to Casa Maria and received a
thank you letter from Jerry knows what I mean.
The love and compassion of Jesus oozes off the
Casa Maria letterhead, as does the truth telling and
fire breathing of the Old Testament prophets.
Every person I know who knows Jerry loves him
and has the ultimate respect for him, and that
includes many people who live
on the streets or have lived on
the streets.
Jerry and Ellie moved from
Chicago to Tucson in 1955,
where they raised their five
kids: Mark, Danny, Jimmy,
Mary and Joe. He served in
the Army Air Corp in World
War 2 in Europe and to this
day refuses to fly due to his
seeing so many planes crash.
Jerry worked at the Duval
mine for 23 years where he
was the shop steward for his
IBEW (International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) local.
He is possibly most famous for his being
the extremely dedicated and fearless captain of the
picket line for the United Farm Workers Union in
Tucson during the 1970’s. Cesar Chavez even
stayed at their home. Ellie, who was definitely his
equal in terms of being a much loved spiritual
presence at Casa Maria and the larger community,
passed away in 1999.
Jerry is now 86. He just got out of the hospital
for congestive heart failure for the second time, but
still gets up at 3 AM every day to write thank yous
for Casa Maria.
He is kind of going to be angry about all this
hoopla about him. He has always been of a like
mind with Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker
movement. When people would accuse her of being a
saint, her reply was always, “please, I don’t want to be
dismissed that easily.”
Sorry, bro.
So come and celebrate with Jerry, We are pretty sure
he will attend. And if the Spirit leads you, write a check
in his honor.
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WE NEED DONATIONS because we exist entirely on
private donations and every single day we serve lunch to
approximately 600 single people and 250 families.
In the spirit of the
voluntary poverty of the
Catholic Worker movement,
the six of us who live and
work here receive ten dollars
a week and a decent place to
live.
In February we had an
arson fire at one of the
houses where workers lived.
Everyone got out safely, but
it was scary. The Fire
Department estimated the
damages could be up to
$80,000 and we received
$38,000 from the insurance.
It took our contractor
a while to get going, but the repair is now
moving rapidly. We don’t know how much it will
ultimately cost.
We continue to pray for the demented soul that did
this-
Our Catholic Worker tradition demands that we not
only comfort the afflicted, but also afflict the
comfortable. We are pursuing new and creative ways
to do this, to organize for change with those served
here. Stay tuned for more about this. And pray that all
the time, talent, treasure and social capital that Casa
Maria has can play a huge part in the spiritual and
economic transformation of the people of this pueblo.
Jerry & Ellie
