‘I could write a book’: Office manager marks 60 years of working for Hampton church

A sense of humor just may be the key to a long life.

Look at some of the comedy-oriented entertainers who graced us for extended periods: George Burns and Bob Hope each lived to be 100, and Betty White, Eddie Albert of “Green Acres” and Larry Storch of “F Troop” weren’t far behind at 99.

Joyce Carney’s stage, so to speak, is St. Ursula Church in Hampton. She’s been employed there for 60 years, today as office manager, displaying her outgoing nature and quick wit for the benefit of staff members, parishioners and visitors.

“People ask, ‘How are you here so long?’” she said. “Well, you keep your eyes and your ears open, and your mouth shut, which is hard for Joyce Carney because I have a way about me that I don’t keep my mouth shut when I probably should at times.”

To honor her decades of loyalty, Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish will celebrate a special Mass at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 16 at St. Ursula, with attendance from St. Mary of the Assumption, the parish’s other Hampton church.

As of mid-August, Mass planners already had packed boxes full of memorabilia from Carney’s office for display, but plenty of items remained on her desk, walls and cabinets. Among the more notable were an autographed photo of singer Tony Orlando and various keepsakes from her longtime friend Cardinal Donald Wuerl, former bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

“Let me tell you, I could write a book. Some of them aren’t printable, but I could write a book. That’s what I told the bishop,” she said. “It’s nice to kid around with him and that. They’re only human.”

In addition to presenting her with a commemorative coin from a papal visit, Wuerl continues to send her cards and remembers her at Mass.

“He’s got me covered,” Carney, who at 87 is five years older than the cardinal, acknowledged. “Maybe that’s why I’m doing so good.”

‘I lived right up around the corner’

Shortly after she and her late husband, Conrad “Art” Carney — hey, you have to love “The Honeymooners” — moved to Hampton from Pittsburgh’s South Side, she started volunteering for her new parish, St. Ursula. That eventually turned into part-time, pay-as-you-go work.

Then the Rev. Henry Petrie, the church’s pastor for 25 years, hired Joyce as his full-time personal secretary in 1970. She later served as St. Ursula’s financial secretary, responsible for the neighboring namesake school along with the parish.

“I lived right up around the corner,” she said. “I’d walk about 20 steps, and I could watch my children going to the school here.”

These days, daughter Tina Vertes and son Conrad Carney II show their conscientiousness by phoning her each morning.

“But I know why they call. They want to see if I woke up in the morning,” Joyce joked. “So I go, ‘Guess what? So far, so good! You don’t have to buy flowers today. I’m above the ground. You can see me. You don’t have to view me.’”

Wisecracks aside, she has a schedule that fits right in with the National Institutes of Health’s pronouncement: “The key to healthy aging is to engage fully in life.”

“I work here Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,” she said of her St. Ursula gig, and she spends Friday babysitting her great-granddaughter. “And then Saturday and Sunday, I’m out. I’m gone.”

‘Even the weekends, I’m up at 7’

Whether she’s going to dinner and attending concerts — she once was fan club president for the likes of Frankie Avalon, Dick Clark and Bobby Darrin — or participating in St. Ursula activities, she often ventures forth from her home at Harmony at Harts Run in Indiana Township.

In fact, when the senior-living community put on an Oscars Night, complete with awards, Carney came up a winner:

“I got the trophy for the lady that lives there that’s never there,” in absentia, of course.

All the giddy-up and going doesn’t seem to tucker her out by evening.

“I usually hit the bed to watch the news,” she said. “I’m never asleep before quarter to 12. Never. And I’m up at 7 o’clock every morning, just like clockwork. Even the weekends, I’m up at 7.”

Then she often serves as the go-to girl at church.

“When you’re here that long, everybody comes to you, no matter what it is: Ask Joyce. Ask Joyce. And some of it doesn’t have anything to do with me,” Carney said. “I hear confession. I wear a collar all the time. My cup runneth over, let me tell you.”

But she’s happy to try to help, as she’s been doing for as long as just about anyone else can remember.

“Of course, it takes all kinds to make the world,” she said. “And I think I’ve met them all since I’ve been here 60 years.”