Tottenville History
The Legacy of Dorothy Day (1897–1980)
Sharing love in action
A personal look at the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement
On December 29, 1927, at Our Lady Help of Christians Church in Tottenville, Father Joseph V. Hyland received Dorothy Day into Catholicism following her conversion when he baptized her daughter, Tamar.
On Saturday, November 8, 1997, while reporting for the Staten Island Register weekly newspaper, I was at the Catholic Center at New York University in commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the birth of Dorothy Day.
The event started with a video of an interview done with Dorothy in 1973 at age 76 that both impacted and stayed with me.
Listening to her voice telling of some calling her too religious, others calling her too radical, I could relate to such accusations.
My own feelings of never quite fitting the mold that society dictates stirred.
Having read everything I could find about her in my research, I especially connected to the loneliness in her autobiography, The Long Loneliness.
