In this Senior Voices web extra, 85 year-old Timothy Connair remembers his journey from choir boy to the priesthood. He shared his story with Dayton Metro Library volunteer interviewer, Linda Pitzer.
Transcript:
Timothy Connair: My name is Tim Connair, a native Daytonian, born in 1931. I attended Holy Trinity Grade School, and then I took a competitive exam to be entered at Sacred Heart Latin School, where we took three years’ work in two years, and started studying Latin in what would be junior high.
When I was six years old, I joined the Inland Children’s Chorus, which was a 175 voice chorus, boys and girls, under the direction of Richard Westbrock, who was a member of the Westbrock Funeral Home family. He worked at Inland Manufacturing Division, and it was sponsored by, the chorus was sponsored by Inland Manufacturing Division. We had rehearsals on Thursday afternoon for the sopranos, and I was a boy soprano at that young age, and then Saturdays we had the full complement of voices for a second rehearsal.
From there, since Mr. Westbrock also directed the Sacred Heart Church Choir where he was organist, I started singing in the church choir, I would go to mass at Holy Trinity on Sundays, the eight o’clock mass, then I would walk downtown eating my roll for breakfast, to sing at the nine-thirty mass at Sacred Heart. Because we only had one car and my dad used that car at work, I rode the bus most everywhere I went, and Third and Main was a very popular meeting point for people who rode the bus.
We also shopped at the Main Street Market, the first floor was a market, and the second floor was a police station, and it was at the police station that my whole family had their finger prints done when I was maybe six or seven at the most. We also shopped at the Arcade, which was a beautiful building at that time, we’d be fresh ground horseradish at Sackestadders Market or Sackestadders Stand, and I would also get treated occasionally to a milkshake at Walkers.
Linda Pitzer: Thank you, you have some interesting early Dayton memories. So, after your early years, what did you do?
Timothy Connair: Well, when I finished Sacred Heart Latin School in 1945, I went to Chaminade as a sophomore, and had some wonderful memories from there, I also had several jobs while I was at Chaminade, even before I got to Chaminade I used to caddy at the Dayton Country Club during the summers, I think I did that for three summers. I was pretty small at the time and some of those bags were pretty heavy. As a result of carrying those heavy bags on my right shoulder, my posture is tilted a little to the right. And when I was at Chaminade, I was working at Gus Hirsch Flowers on West Second Street across the street from Rike’s, and then in my senior year I got a job at Bucher Brothers Printers on South Ludlow where AAA now has their offices.
Linda Pitzer: Okay, so what did you do after high school?
Timothy Connair: Oh, after high school I went away to school. I went to Maryknoll Junior College in Lakewood New Jersey for my freshman year, then Maryknoll built a four year college in the outskirts of Chicago in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, and I was in the group that opened that in 1949, the fall of 49. I graduated from there with a BA in 1952, Had a year of spiritual training in Bedford, Massachusetts, and then had post graduate work in theology in Ossining, New York. I was ordained in 1957, and was sent to the missions in South America in the end of July of 57, I arrived in Lima, Peru on my way to language school in Cochabamba, Bolivia.
After his time as a missionary, Father Connair served as an Air Force chaplain, working with Vietnam era POWs. He stays active today as a volunteer for the Dayton Philharmonic, Saint Leonard’s, and the House of Bread.
This interview was edited by Community Voices producer and Senior Voices project coordinator Jocelyn Robinson. Senior Voices is a collaboration between the Dayton Metro Library, Rebuilding Together Dayton, and WYSO. This series is made possible through the generous support of the Del Mar Healthcare Fund of the Dayton Foundation.
