Convention Insider

Wives Work Side by Side

While Fran O’Hara, Pennsylvania state warden, worked patiently at the convention registration desk, handling last-minute details and requests from Knights waiting in line, his wife was greeting all attendees with a big smile and answers to many questions.

“The Mass is upstairs … registration this way ... Good morning!” Patty O’Hara said repeatedly early Sunday morning at the convention hotel in downtown Philadelphia.

“We’re a great family in the Knights of Columbus,” she said, during a rare slow period. “I can’t tell you how thrilled we all are to be here, and finally to be into the convention after years of preparation. All the Knights and their wives are working together. We help out wherever we are needed. The wives work right beside their husbands to get the job done.”

As delegates and their families began arriving over the weekend, wives of Pennsylvania Knights were seen throughout the convention hotel, helping with tours, giving directions, staffing hospitality rooms.

Joining the Order is an O’Hara family tradition, Patty said. Her four sons all took their Fourth Degree two years ago with their great grandfather at the ceremony. Her one daughter is married to a Knight.

“There is nothing better than the Knights of Columbus when it comes to keeping us connected,” she said.

One of Patty O’Hara’s duties is staffing the raffle table, where chances are being taken to win two original artworks: “American Watercolor,” by Anna Marie Glowaski, wife of State Deputy Stanley Glowaski, and a quilt of red, white and blue patterns by Barbara Johnson, wife of Eric Johnson, Pennsylvania’s immediate past state deputy.

“These ladies are so talented and so generous with their time,” Patty remarked.