I was born in Brooklyn in November of 1929, the month of the stock-market crash and the year the Depression began. I was twelve years old before my mother bought me my first commercially made dress. I can remember her sewing our clothes. She would always cut out a little piece of cloth for me to make a dress for my doll. Because my mother was from Kentucky and this was during the Depression years, she would take her four daughters there every summer. During those summers we would help tend the garden, preserve what came out of it, and help churn butter. We would enjoy the home-made ice cream. We would feed the chickens to get out of doing dishes. All of these activities were wonderful little experiences of producing what we needed. Grandfather would always help mother pack up the canned goods and ship them to our home in Brooklyn. So when this food arrived, I knew where it came from; I knew my grandfather had tended the garden and my grandmother had directed the canning. It was an important lesson in appreciating what we made ourselves, in developing survival skills, and recognizing our dependence on the land.
I remember coal being delivered to our house when I was a child. The furnace was in the basement, and I knew how it worked. I saw the way my mother fired it up in the morning and banked it at night. When we got up in the morning, we ran to the radiator so we could get dressed next to its warmth. I didn't know where coal came from, but I thought it must come from someplace special. Finding that place later gave me great satisfaction. Once again, I learned that something essential to our household came from the land. It took decades of living in Appalachia for me to understand the importance of the interconnection between urban and rural places.
By 1947 I was a big girl and wanted to get out of the city. The way to do that was to join a group of missionary sisters. They were called the Glenmary Home Mission Sisters of America, and I was going to join them in their work in rural communities and save the world. As part of my experience as a missionary, I remember giving food away, giving clothes away, giving baskets at Christmastime, providing health services, and teaching in Bible schools. But I also remember valuing the fact that people were growing their own food and finding their own firewood and going to the railroad tracks to pick up pieces of coal. They were making quilts from scraps and their children's clothes from feed sacks. I loved being with such people. I liked that identity. It connected me to my roots, to my deepest values. I also witnessed great generosity from the poorest of the poor. They, like the land, gave generously of what the Earth gave them. When I fell in love with Pond Creek in the southeastern corner of Ohio when I was sent there as a Glenmary Sister, I knew I would never leave rural America.
In 1967 I left this order of missionaries with forty-three other women who wanted to continue working with the Appalachian people but not within the institutional Church setting. We formed a nonprofit group and called it the Federation of Communities in Service (FOCIS). It was then that I moved from the immigrant neighborhood of uptown Chicago, where I had spent the past four years, to a place called the Clearfork Valley. I have been there ever since.
Marie Cirrillo

Joined modern convent in Cincinatti in the early 1950’s. Glenmary Sisters.119
Later worked with poor in Appalachian Region in Tennessee. Worked one summer with Caroline Kennedy.119

Marie Cirillo, a Brooklyn native, left her home at age19 to join the Catholic Order of the Glenmary Home Mission Sisters of America in Ohio. She worked in impoverished and rural areas as a teacher, cook and missionary. Marie was encouraged by the order to attend college in Chicago, where she demonstrated a special interest on rural outmigration and complemented her studies with extensive fieldwork in Appalachia. After 18 years as a nun, Marie left the order to form along with other former Glenmary Sisters the Federation of Communities in Service (FOCIS). This new organization would allow the women to continue in Appalachia and live by their commitment to work in the community where they lived. Marie settled in Clearfork Valley where the population had quickly outgrown from 30,000 to 3,000. She became a community developer, encouraging the Clearfork community to organize for social change. In 1977, after understanding that the major problem of Appalachia is the lack of access to land, Marie and the community established the Woodland Community Land Trust, which allows Clearfork Valley residents to have secure and affordable access to land and housing.
Marie has worked tirelessly for 46 years developing programs to facilitate peer learning, leadership support, communication and microenterprise development. She is president of The Clearfork Community Institute, helped establish Rural American Women in Washington, DC, and has been a member of the National Congress of Neighborhood Women for more than two decades.
 
Marie Cirillo will retire as president of the Clearfork Community Institute on Sep 7th, 2013, the same date when she arrived at Clearfork Valley in 1967. If you would like to send her good wishes and memoirs please send an email to info@neighborhoodwomen.org.