Parish administrator retires to return to her roots

Intermountain Catholic

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Anne Kurek displays the St. Joseph the Worker Parish's history archives. IC photo/Christine Young

WEST JORDAN — Anne Kurek has been a parishioner at Saint Joseph the Worker for 20 years. She volunteered at the parish for 14 years before becoming the parish administrator in 2008 – a job from which she will retire on April 30.

However, Kurek won’t leave her position until after the parish celebrates its 50th anniversary May 2.

Kurek has been preparing for this day for years without realizing it. It all began one day when she realized that the parish had a lot of history and thought that someone should write it down before it was lost, she said. She has spent hours voluntarily writing about and photographing parish history and then documenting events as they occurred, and in the meantime developed the parish archives. Her jobs have overlapped as she also assisted with the parish Folk Fest for 14 years, wrote the parish newsletter for 10 years and was the secretary and administrator for eight years.

Kurek has been "outstanding," said Father Patrick Carley, pastor, adding that he asked Kurek to be the administrator. "She has been excellent. This job has given her a lot of flexibility and an opportunity to do the kinds of things she likes to do."

Fr. Carley complimented Kurek on the parish archives and for "putting together nice displays for various events," he said. "She is very creative. She also is a good secretary and administrator. She came on board just as we were ready to launch a campaign for a new church; she was very instrumental and kept us on track; she was very personally invested in that."

After she retires, Kurek plans to travel with her husband. "We are going to take our time," she said. "My parents met in the Marine Corps and my father made it his career. We moved all over the country, so I have wanderlust in my blood, and I think that that’s what is taking over in me. My children are grown and it’s time for me to go out and see the world again."

Kurek plans to go someplace she has never been before and "grow to understand it," she said. "You just catch the shell of somewhere if you just visit or live there for a short time."

A cruise to Russia and the Arctic Circle are in Kurek’s plans. After they travel, they plan to settle temporarily in the Baltimore and Washington, D. C. area, where Kurek has family.

One of the reasons Kurek feels compelled to travel now is because her grandfather, her father and her brother all died at age 54, she said. "I am very aware that life doesn’t go on forever."

Kurek plans to return to Utah because there is something that draws her to the St. Joseph the Worker community, she said. "It became my family; it is a very sweet and loving community," she said. "I have been here 20 years and that is longer than I lived with my family."

After high school, she left home to attend the University of North Carolina, studying philosophy. After graduation, her first job led her to Chicago and then Detroit, where she met and married her husband while they were both working for the U.S. Railroad. They moved a few times before arriving in Utah as a result of her husband’s job. She became active right away in the parish as a stay-at-home mother of two sons.

Kurek likes the people of St. Joseph the Worker and over the years has watched them experience many things in life, she said. "There is something that keeps them coming to this parish," said Kurek. "This is a community and I had never experienced that before. I would be very sad if I thought we were leaving forever. It has been an honor to be a part of this parish."