Longtime volunteer, John Kappelmeier, retires from parish ministry

In January, longtime St. Joseph’s Parish of Newton parishioner John Kappelmeier retired from the Counters ministry. Kappelmeier had overseen the group that counted the weekly collection monies for over 12 years but served the parish in the ministry for 25 years.

Larry Erwin and Valerie Frank are now in charge of the operation. Collection money is counted for each Mass from the prior weekend on Tuesdays, and it is all recounted a second time for a grand total that will appear in the Sunday bulletin.

“There were five or six of us who took care of it and some backups in case somebody got sick,” Kappelmeier said fondly of his team.

Kappelmeier, 85, moved to New Jersey part-time in 1966 as a summer resident in Swartswood and attended Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish.

“At that time, they did not have any pews in the church. The church was brand new,” he recalled. Initially, he and his family divided time between their first home in Brooklyn and Swartswood, but eventually, they became year-round Newton residents in 1970.

Anne and John Kappelmeier will be married 61 years this May. They have three children, Christopher, Thomas, and Lorraine.

“St. Joseph’s Church had been there a long time when we arrived. It was well established,” Kappelmeier said of the 159-year-old parish. “It had a school across the street, and all my kids went to grammar school there.”

For Kappelmeier, a spiritual nature prevailed during his Counters ministry years.

He said, “I got to know all the different priests in our parish; they would rotate every six or seven years. They were all very good priests, and they all had their own special specialties.”

Kappelmeier served in various roles at St. Joseph’s under the pastorship of the following: Father Thomas Murphy, 1969–1980; Father Edward Davey, 1980–1999; Father Peter Filipkowski, 1999–2010; Father Brian Sullivan, 2010–2015; and current pastor, Father ST Sutton, first as administrator, 2015–2017, and then as pastor from 2017 to current.

Kappelmeier, who is also a current member of Knights of Columbus, also served as an usher during Sunday Mass and as a member of the Lazarus Ministry for funerals at St. Joseph’s. He said the latter two ministries harken him back to his dad’s passing.

“It was an honor to be an usher,” he recalled of that day. “You had to wear a suit and tie, and you had to wear a badge. When my father died, they gave me his badge.”

Father ST said, “John Kappelmeier is very dedicated and very generous. For a long, long, long time, he participated in the Counters ministry and is one of the columns of our church. He is a man of dedication and humble service who was ready and willing to step up to the plate when needed.”

When asked if he misses serving with the Counters ministry, Kappelmeier responded, “My wife keeps asking me about that. I miss being with the people.”