HAMMOND – Longtime Hessville resident Diane McKern is recognized for her charitable heart and the way she helps bring out the best in others.
McKern, vice president for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, District Council of Gary, has found a way to share the finite space of her home with family and friends, encourage volunteerism among parishioners and helped turn “dog people” into “cat lovers.”
“I wear multiple hats and I’ve been very aware of trying to share what I know,” McKern said. “If something happened to me and my conference died because I wasn’t there anymore, then I failed. That conference is not Diane; it is everyone bringing their gifts to the table.”
McKern considers herself a daughter of the South and believes it shows in her hearty home-cooking and folksy demeanor. The second among nine children, her family moved from Alabama to Texas to Chicago as her father looked for better work.
A mother of four – two daughters and two sons, McKern often opened her home to her children’s friends and extended family. When someone needed help sorting out something, they were invited to stay over and have dinner, play games with the kids or meditate in Diane’s butterfly garden.
“(Years ago) we had 13 people in our living room, and I had to step between people on the way to our one bathroom,” said Diane’s husband Dan McKern.
The McKerns said good feelings often permeated the home, but even as in a classic TV show, family pow-wows often have the answer to tense situations.
“All through the week the kids each had their own schedule, but Sundays after church we got to sit down together,” Diane McKern said. “Danny would put on classical music … we would talk. They would be the funniest conversations.”
Diane McKern came from a Protestant household, but seeing the example of faithfulness in her future husband, an Irish-American steelworker who she married in 1972, decided to join the Catholic Church in 1980.
She said she was impressed with how many local Catholics found ways to put their faith in action. She knew which “Scripture and verse” were the basis for Catholic teaching, but frequently wondered, “but what am I doing?”
For Diane McKern, Scottish in ancestry, joining the Catholic Church and becoming active in the Society of St. Vincent de Paul was like “the puzzle pieces coming together.”
McKern considers the late Sister Helen Koeppen, a Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ who served in Hammond, to be a key role model. The nun was complimentary of the McKerns’ dedication to the charitable work of SVDP.
“Sister Helen said my mom was the ‘best little Baptist in the Catholic Church,’” recalled McKern.
She believes Sister Helen was not off-target, as her mother and many family members were drawn into the charitable services of Hammond-area Catholic churches.
“My Mom always knew families that were hurting,” McKern said of the intuitive woman who “read her Bible until it was falling apart.”
Now St. Teresa of Calcutta, McKern often cites the nun’s simplicity, big heartedness, and her advice such as to “do small things with great love.”
Working with volunteer knitters and collecting from retail shoppers from throughout the Region, she has continued a longtime association with the Caps for Kids charitable endeavor. Promoted in diocesan publications, she said the initiative has helped keep thousands of area residents warm during the winter months.
An example of the McKerns opening up their hearts to “all creatures great or small,” is their warming up to felines. Since Diane’s interventions with a Garfield-looking cat called Oliver to their 21-year relationship with a blessing of a calico cat called Vesper (Latin for ‘evening prayer’), they safely transported to adoption services or keep as pets dozens of the little furballs.
Sometimes urgent care was required for cats or kittens.
“At one point I said, ‘I am not going to just feed the cats on my porch, I am going to start catching them and I want to start finding homes for them,’” she explained. “I feel God often puts these babies (kittens) in a situation when we can catch them – and Vesper was one of them.”
Proud of the history of the SVDP, which was founded in Paris in 1833 to promote the sanctification of souls through service to the poor, McKern began serving as a volunteer at her home parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in 1980. Later, she served in conference leadership and was the council president.
Most of McKern’s frontline charitable work is in North Lake County. She is often on the phone or texting to help people obtain assistance to pay utility bills. She hand delivers grocery store gift cards to those in need, extending the traditional working hours most are familiar with for their jobs.
That flows into the spirit of McKern’s service, which is far less about “keeping up appearances,” and more resembles her role model Mother Teresa. “St. Vincent de Paul is not a social club; it is a ministry.”
One innovation McKern believes will continue to serve the many families facing economic distress is the mobile device-based communication relay she designed. The system streamlined contact among Catholic Charities and an ecumenical group of churches who separately pledge to pay portions of a person’s utility bill.
“We had talked for years about forming a partnership. This has worked well through the pandemic,” Diane McKern said. “This is (by) God’s hand; it’s a miracle all the time and I love seeing a person get (Help).” Extensive typing and hauling of donated goods has necessitated surgeries, which have invariably slowed down the Hammond Vincentian, but she has always believed that God will provide.
“God does not just stand there waiting for us, he wants us to love Him, worship Him and seek Him. He blesses everyone who contributes,” said McKern. “My conference is stronger than they’ve ever been.”
And when it all seems like a little too much to manage, Diane McKern said some zany humor is available compliments of her grandchildren, especially a feisty four-year-old Wyatt Fano, and superhero seven-year-old Everett Fano, who she babysits.
“To us, we love babysitting,” she said. “We have to get up early, but to us, it’s laugh therapy, and we need it.”