Rita Kern, mother of diocesan director, Office of Diaconate Passes Away

Rita Bernadette Kern (nee Sweeney), 96, of Plantsville, Connecticut, passed away on July 26. Born in Weehawken, she lived in Franklin Lakes, eventually moving to Connecticut with her husband of 59 years Fred R. Kern.

Rita was valedictorian of her class in St. Cecilia High School, Englewood, and attended Caldwell College for Women, where she earned the first degree in Music awarded by the college. She had some singing engagements on the local Seton Hall radio station, and then taught music in a local high school for several years until she chose to marry and start a family.

Rita was also a parishioner in St. Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church in Wallingford, Connecticut, and a founding parishioner of the Church of the Most Blessed Sacrament Parish, Franklin Lakes, where she was a member of the choir and the parish council.

Of all her many roles – loving wife, outstanding singer, good cook, caring neighbor, active MBS Parishioner – perhaps the thing Rita was best at was being a mother. For all of her and Fred’s children, it did not matter if they were five years old or sixty-five … the love, concern and caring for each of them was the same. As her faculties declined in later years, that mother’s love that she possessed in such abundance may have been the last thing to remain.

Predeceased by her husband Fred “Bud” Kern, parents Maybelle (Hasbrouck) and Terence Sweeney and sister Dorothy Kleinknecht, she is survived by a sister Marie Sweeney of Cresskill.

She was a devoted mother of Stephen Kern and his wife Rosemary of Flemington; Donna Finn and her husband Thomas of Southington, Conn.; Christine Kern of Morrisville, N.C.; David Kern and his wife Susan of Raleigh, N.C. She was a loving grandmother to nine grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

A funeral Mass was held on August 14 at St Elizabeth Church, Wycoff, with interment at Christ the King Cemetery, Franklin Lakes, immediately following. Memorial donations may be made to St Jude Children’s Hospital, Memphis, Tenn. (www.stjude.org) or Franciscan Home Care & Hospice Care, Meriden Conn. (www.franciscanhc.org).