DCCW touches a life

Intermountain Catholic

+ Enlarge

Selma Jockisch

In 1952, Selma Jockisch debarked from a ship in New Orleans with her husband and 1-year-old daughter. They had spent two weeks crossing from Germany and were supposed to have docked in New York, but a hurricane drove them to New Orleans. The family had lost everything during World War II; both Jockisch’s husband and brother-in-law had spent years in Russian prison camps. A Catholic parish in Saint Louis sponsored their immigration to the United States.

As they stepped off the boat, they were handed a slip of paper on which was written ‘DCCW,’ and $5 per person. "It was the biggest blessing of all," Jockisch told the women at the 85th annual Salt Lake City Diocesan Council of Catholic Women on April 20.

Another couple, who had a 3-year-old boy, were on the same ship as the Jockisches. They arrived on a Sunday, when all the stores were closed. The men went out in search of food, coming back with buttermilk.

"So we took our little ones and went to the side streets," Jockisch said in an interview. The two women saw a shop window with food on display, so they knocked on the door. Neither woman knew more than a few words of English, but they were able to buy sausage and bread, and milk for the children.

"We gave them the first $5 and we fed the kids for the first time," said Jockisch, who came to Utah 43 years ago.

A member of Saint Marguerite Parish in Tooele, she has been active in the Ladies Guild, helps in the kitchen and was a religious education teacher for years. In 1997 she was named the parish’s DCCW Woman of the Year.

Amy Kennedy, DCCW president, said she asked Jockisch to tell her story at the convention because "we don’t know how the smallest thing, a collection that we take, can impact a life."