Every weekday at 5:25 a.m., Vi Mushrush scurries into Elizabeth Ann Seton to open the doors, clean, set up and help open for 6:30 a.m. mass.
There’s nothing unusual about churches relying on parishioners to help out, but what is unusual is Vi’s age. She’s 95.
She looks 20 years younger and has the energy of someone 30 years her junior. She’s talkative, friendly, a jokester and a hard worker. And she’s known for her tight, almost spine-cracking hugs.
“A hug is not a hug unless you use two arms,” she said. “My mother always said you should be able to feel their heartbeat.”
Her mother always said age is just a number
At 95, Mushrush still drives. After mass, people gather for coffee, which she often pours and never spills a drop. Congregation members marvel at that fact, but she holds out her hands to show they don’t shake.
“I don’t feel old,” she said, then looked at the crocheted Last Supper picture hanging on the wall above a desk and continued. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t climb up on that desk to dust that.”
But fellow parishioners and priests do, and they tell her not to climb on anything and be careful.
“My mother always said age is just a number,” Mushrush said. “If you think you’re going to be old at 40, you will be old. We didn’t look at birthdays as aging, we were just grateful God gave us another year.
“People take things too seriously. Have fun. Life is too short.”
Mushrush's family emigrated from Italy before tragedy struck
Vi was 6 years old when her family emigrated from Italy on a “dinky, dinky boat.”
The seas were rough, the swells huge and there were times they thought they’d sink. The journey took a week, and they were only fed two dry biscuits a day, one in the morning and one at night.
“When we landed at Ellis Island, everyone was hollering,” she said.
Her dad was told to go to Ohio because there was work at a mill, and so the family of five moved there.
One year later, when he was only 36, Vi's father died of pneumonia, leaving a widow and three children. Vi was 7 years old.
“We had no means to support ourselves,” she said. “But my mother said, ‘Daddy brought us here for a better life and we will make it.’”
Her mother cleaned churches, cooked for others and washed clothes for nuns to earn tuition for her daughters to attend Catholic school.
“Out of nothing, my mom could make a meal,” Mushrush said. “We survived. People say it makes you hard, but I have many beautiful memories from childhood. God took Daddy, but he gave me so many other wonderful people in life that allow me to be who I am, because I am a screwball.”
Marriage took her to Texas, retirement brought her to Springfield
Vi grew up and in 1951, married Chuck and they moved to Texas.
One day, a bank was opening in town, so she walked in and asked if they were hiring. A man wearing coveralls said no, but as she turned to leave, he asked if she could set up a filing system. She could and she did. He liked it and offered Vi a job.
Vi Mushrush knew nothing about the banking world and worked her way up from secretary to loan officer and vice president.
When Vi and Chuck would drive from Texas to Ohio to visit her mother, they’d pass through the Ozarks. Chuck always said this was where he was going to live when he retired.
And he meant it.
When he retired, he put their house on the market without telling Vi and told her boss she was retiring, too. She found out when customers came into the bank and commented about the huge “For Sale” sign in her yard.
In 1992, they moved to Springfield, visited every Catholic church and fell in love with St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. They bought a house near the church so that one day if they couldn’t drive, they could still walk to mass. Her entire life, she has attended daily mass, as did her mother.
Making friends with a priest
On that first visit, they met Father Mike McDevitt, who has become a close friend. One blustery fall morning after mass, they were joking back and forth.
“Oh, does she help, oh my gosh,” McDevitt said. “She does great. Sometimes she takes the whole mass.”
Mushrush raised her fist, but said she couldn’t hit McDevitt because he was wearing his priest collar.
Mushrush's helping hands do a lot of work
Vi is uncomfortable with the attention, saying so many people pitch in at the church, not just her. If you ask her, she'll tell you they give her too much credit.
Each morning, Vi helps prepare the altar, vestments for the priests, readies the water and wine, sets up the books for readings, vacuums the floors, dusts, supervises the altar persons, organizes someone each day to do the readings, organizes the Eucharist and more.
She also walks through the aisles after church to make sure no one has left a hymn book on the seats.
Vi also takes charge or assists at most funerals and other special ceremonies at church.
Vi greets visitors and always invites a new member to stay for coffee after mass.
In short, she does whatever is needed and far more than is expected.
‘This is my home. This is my family.'
Vi Mushrush credits her “6:30 a.m. church family” for getting her through hard times, like the passing of her husband in 2016.
“I don’t look at this as work, it’s my pride and joy,” she said. “This is my home. This is my family.”
