A lifetime with the Council of Catholic Women

Friday, Jun. 23, 2023

TOOELE — For more than 70 years, Mary Busico Cerroni has been a member of the Council of Catholic Women. Cerroni, now 100, joined the organization in 1953, when it was called the Ladies Guild. She has stayed active within its ranks ever since.

Cerroni was born in Tooele to immigrant parents from the town of Agnone, known as the city of the bells, in Italy. The seventh child of 12, she was one of only two of the couple’s children who made it to adulthood. She grew up and attended school in Tooele. Although she knew who her future husband Joe was, it was only after he asked her to dance at a wedding party that she got to know him better. 

“I didn’t know how to dance, and I still don’t,” she recalled recently. 

Romance blossomed but, like many couples of the time, the two were separated by World War II. Joe had signed up for the Army where he served for four years and one month. “I wrote him a letter almost every day just to tell him what was going on, to keep his morale up,” Cerroni said. 

Shortly after the war, Mary and Joe Cerroni married. Before long, they purchased land in Tooele and had a home built; Mary Cerroni still lives in that house today. In 1950, their only child John was born in Tooele in a small hospital owned by the International Smelting and Refining Company. 

“They had just enough room for four women to have their babies,” Cerroni said. 

Like many men in the community, Cerroni’s husband and son worked for the International Smelting and Refining Company. As the years went by, John married and had three children. In 1972 both Joe and John contracted mesothelioma after helping to tear down the old company smelter, and they died from the disease in 2002. John’s wife Deona and daughter Christy both passed away from primary pulmonary hypertension. Their son Tony also struggled with the disease until he had a lung transplant last November. Their other son, John Thomas, lives in New York.

During those family difficulties, Cerroni’s association with her CCW sisters helped her, she said. The DCCW is “a wonderful organization, not just for Catholics,” she said.  “It keeps your faith much better.”

Cerroni joined the St. Marguerite CCW in 1953, when John just 3 years old. In the 1980s she served two terms as the organization’s president and was her parish’s Woman of the Year in 1983. She also served as the Diocesan Council of Catholic Women president from 1983 to 1986. She has attended the national convention at least 10 times, traveling to Orlando, Fla., Minneapolis, Seattle and various sites in California for that event. Among her notable experiences was being at the 1960 national convention in Las Vegas, which Mother Teresa (now Saint Teresa of Kolkata) attended. 

This year, Cerroni hopes to again attend the NCCW convention, which is taking place in Salt Lake City Aug. 23-26, just weeks after her 101st birthday. She also continues her participation by going to the lunch gatherings of the DCCW past presidents, which occur three times of year. Last August many of her fellow DCCW members gathered with her family in Tooele to celebrate her 100th birthday. 

“She was surprised and humbled by the celebration; she looks to us all as sisters,” DCCW President Barb Kerouac said. “Mary is a true mentor and example of a woman of God. She has inspired so many of us to do God’s work with joy and love. Mary is loved by all who meet her.”

Cerroni’s friend Marilyn Hildebrand agreed that she has been an inspiration to those around her. “She is just a very committed Catholic,” Hildebrand said. “She does whatever she can and she’s very dedicated. No matter what, she goes to Mass.”