Living on the Edge Keeps Kay Canney in the Middle of Things

By Cecile Cote

According to the old adage, "everyone has a story." Well, Kay Canney has many. Before meeting Kay, I had a very thumbnail sketch of the woman - I had heard her lector, seen her as a Eucharistic Minister, and remembered reading her name on a Little Brown House flier. Wow, what I DIDN'T know! This is a woman who follows her instincts and lives purposefully, even if it means "living on the edge."

Fresh out of Emmanuel College with a Math degree, Kay took a job with MIT. Working in their Wind Tunnel Facility, she evaluated models of supersonic aircraft. After two years, she went with a company under contract with the Atomic Energy Commission, where she assessed nuclear weapons tests. Present at the 1958 nuclear bomb tests in Nevada, Kay was appalled at the weapon's potentially devastating effects. She concluded that development of a nuclear bomb was immoral and felt "the need to do something good."

In a boldly independent move for a young woman of that time, Kay found her cause in Mannheim and Worms, Germany. There, she worked for two years on U.S. military bases in the club for enlisted men. It was open seven days a week and provided all sorts of entertainment for the troops. Kay arranged everything from bingo to ballroom dancing, negotiating with officers for activity space. Her next move was a two-year stint with Lockheed in California where she worked on the Polaris missile. Then, the first Apollo Spacecraft Program was calling, so Kay joined that effort, using probability and statistics to analyze the spacecraft's guidance system.

Around this time, a friend introduced Kay to someone described as a great guy. His name was Joe Canney, and he was indeed a great guy, and a Boston College grad to boot. They were engaged in three weeks!

The young couple settled in as new parishioners of St. Mary's Church. It was 1966 and Fr. Lynch was pastor. While in Germany, Kay developed a close friendship with the Army Chaplain and assisted him at Mass, a role unheard of for women back in the states. Well, once at St. Mary's it didn't take Kay long to get an idea of how she could more fully participate at Mass. After preparing a litany of reasons why she should be a lector, Kay was ready to approach Fr. Lynch. Following him into the sacristy after Mass, Kay began, "You know Father, I could be a lector" and was about to launch into her well-rehearsed speech, when he turned to her and said "O.K." Thus, St. Mary's Church had its first woman lector!

After the births of sons Joseph and Patrick, Kay and Joe decided that the family should sit together throughout the Mass, so Kay gave up lecturing and Joe left the choir. She became a CCD teacher and he joined the Finance Committee. Kay said this is when she stopped living on the edge and "moved into the middle."

Kay and Joe were blessed with 35 years together. After Joe's death in December of 2000, an idea came to Kay, and after three decades away from lecturing, she felt inspired to return to the ministry. This time, so that she could read at Mass on Joe's birthday and at his Anniversary Mass. She signed up for the lecturing classes, went through the training, and fulfilled her loving wish. Kay feels very deeply about the ministry of lecturing. For Kay, it's not reading, it's proclaiming the Word of God. She said that you must understand what you read and you must believe it. It's very rewarding, she said, and smiling, added that it keeps you on your toes during Mass.

Over the years Kay has had her hand in many parish activities, some very visible to the congregation and some in the background (like the little white baptismal gowns she makes), but as she puts it "I don't like committee work. I like to take and do something, get the job done." Yes, Kay is a no-nonsense woman who tells it as she sees it. She's also a great, yet humble, storyteller with tremendous intelligence and a lot of class. And she's looking to move back out to the edge, because she agrees with someone she once heard on the radio saying that if you're not on the edge, you're taking up too much room.

Where is she right now? Probably at the Shrewsbury Senior Center where she puts her years with H & R Block to the test as a volunteer tax preparer. Gosh, I haven't told you about her job at the Worcester County Jail and House of Correction, her tutoring in the Worcester School System's bilingual program, the years she kept the books for the Worcester County Poetry Association, her computer programming, her trips through the Panama Canal and the Alaskan Inner Passage, and her sweet granddaughter, Julia. You'll have to hook up with Kay and have a chat over a cup of coffee. No, wait - she doesn't drink coffee - but that's another story.