Chris Smith: After 47 years, Father O’Sullivan, rock of St. Rose, is retiring

It was Oct. 10, 1972, when former dairy kid Denis O’Sullivan of County Kerry in Ireland landed in Sonoma County.

“I spent my very first night in the guest room here at the St. Rose rectory,” he recalled.

O’Sullivan was, in ’72, a 25-year-old rookie priest who’d lived always in Ireland but after seminary asked to be assigned to Santa Rosa. Both his older brother and a family friend had served the church there and highly recommended it.

Forty-seven years later, Father O’Sullivan is moving his things out of St. Rose and retiring from a parish that’s feeling sad but blessed to have had him for so remarkably long.

“He was selfless,” says Ginger Schoenstein, who served 15 years as parish secretary. “He never says no to anybody for anything. Anything you would ask of him, he would do it.”

On top of that, the pastor has that delightful Irish manner of speech and sense of humor.

“There was no bad in him,” Schoenstein said.

Father O’Sullivan wasn’t at St. Rose in central Santa Rosa his entire career, but most of it. He started off in ’72 as an associate pastor at east Santa Rosa’s St. Eugene’s Cathedral, then at St. John’s in Healdsburg.

He served also at Catholic Charities and in 1982 was assigned administrator, then pastor, of St. Rose.

Among the milestones that stand out to him: the construction of a new St. Rose School north of town near Cardinal Newman High, the retrofitting of the old school in downtown Santa Rosa and the still-in-?progress restoration and fortifying of the gracious stone church dating to 1900 that stands alongside its successor at 10th and B streets.

“A lot for a parish to undertake,” the retiring priest said.

What he treasures most is his decades of work with the people of the St. Rose parish and school. He was touched deeply when they thanked him by rededicating the St. Rose Parish Center as the Fr. Denis O’Sullivan Parish Center.

The priest will retire in Petaluma and will fill in when needed at St. James and at other parishes. And he’ll slow down, do some traveling.

“I’ll be 72 my next birthday,” he said. “I’m getting out while I’ll still reasonably healthy.”

Though he lost his older brother Tim, who came to Santa Rosa and sang its praises, he still has family in Ireland. It’ll be nice while visiting them to know there’s nothing he has to rush back to Sonoma County for.

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LOST TO FLAMES when the Tubbs fire devoured Gwen Adkins’ home was the lovely, engraved crystal vase she’d been presented on-stage at the Miss America Pageant of 2009.

The award recognized the 50 years of volunteer service that Gwen, a Santa Rosan, had dedicated to the Miss Sonoma County and Miss California competitions.

That 50-year vase is gone forever. But Gwen has just received a splendid, updated version.

At the Miss California competition in Fresno, she was called onto the stage and given a vase in gratitude for her now 60 years of dedication to the young women who vie for the titles and scholarships.

Active since she first volunteered for the Miss Sonoma County competition of 1959, Gwen has served 34 years as a field director for the Miss California organization.

At 85, she’ll tell you that to watch young contestants perform and aspire and grow has been a highlight of the past 60 years.

You can reach Staff Writer Chris Smith at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.