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Father Balasko mixes humor, memories in lecture
By Bob Jackson
LIBERTY
Even though he spent much of his early Catholic school years in the dark of cloakrooms, the Rev. George Balasko went on to have a long and distinguished career in the ministry.
Father Balasko, who brought polka to Mass, and was a pioneer in Jewish/Christian relations, was the speaker Saturday for the William Holmes McGuffey Historical Society’s “Memories of a Lifetime” series. The event was in the meeting room of Kravitz’s Deli on Belmont Avenue.
Born in 1934 on Youngstown’s East Side, Father Balasko was the ninth of 10 children and grew up on North Truesdale Avenue. Around age 6, he was enrolled in school at Immaculate Conception Church on Oak Street, where he was under the tutelage of the Ursuline Sisters. The sisters, he said, generally were not amused or pleased with his behavior.
“I knew more about the cloakroom than I did about the classroom,” he joked, noting that pupils were often made to sit in the cloakroom for misbehaving.
Throughout his hour-long presentation, the longtime priest cracked jokes and shared humorous anecdotes that kept the 30 or so attendees laughing.
In 1948, Father Balasko graduated from Immaculate Conception and began attending East High School, where he was voted “the wittiest kid in the class.” Upon his graduation from East, he spent a few years working in the printing department of Republic Steel and becoming a fan of the Cleveland Indians, whose games he used to watch on a TV in a bar owned by one of his relatives.
His passion for the Indians sometimes created conflict with his four brothers, who were New York Yankees fans, and who brought home the racial divide that existed in professional baseball at that time.
“There was racism,” Father Balasko said. “I loved [former Indians Hall of Famer] Larry Doby, so they said I was a n----r lover.” Doby was one of the first blacks to enter the major leagues and is credited with helping to break the racial barriers of the game.
In 1957, Father Balasko was drafted into the Army, and stationed at Fort Gordon, Ga., where he became an electronics instructor. Although he officially maxed out at the rank of private 1st class, he often was given “false ranks” for the purpose of teaching because, as the instructor, he had to be the highest-ranking person in the room.
“There was a colonel in my class one day, and you couldn’t have a private instructing a colonel, so for 15 minutes I was a brigadier general,” he said, again bringing the group to laughter.
Father Balasko said his military service was not pleasant, but it was a valuable part of his history.
“I wouldn’t take a million dollars to do it again, but I wouldn’t take a million dollars to give up what I got out of it,” he said. “They made me an instructor.” He learned the value of using visual aids for teaching, rather than relying solely on lectures.
His stint in the military caused him to first consider entering the priesthood, and he ultimately wound up at St. Mary’s Seminary in Cincinnati. St. Mary’s, he said, has since been closed and converted into a prison.
“They didn’t have to change it much, I can tell you that,” he joked.
Ordained in 1967, Father Balasko led parishes in Alliance and Canton before taking over St. Nicholas Church in Struthers. Along the way, he had developed an affinity for polka music and had even toured Slovenia playing banjo in a polka band. While in Slovenia, he came up with the idea of putting Catholic worship songs to polka music and using them in Mass.
The concept didn’t sit well with church leaders at first.
“Everybody thought polka music belonged in barrooms,” he said. “No, it belonged to the families. It started with families, and then made its way into bars.”
In the early 1970s, he performed his first polka Mass at Holy Rosary Church in Lowellville, and they still are being performed locally.
He also met the late Rabbi Samuel Meyer, with whom he co-founded the Jewish/Christian Diaglogue program to help build better relations between the faiths.
Father Balasko is the founder, general editor and producer of a continuing-education program in cooperation with Alba House Communications, and for more than 20 years has been the host and producer of the “Jewish/Christian Dialogue” network television series.
Richard S. Scarsella, president of the McGuffey society, said the Youngstown chapter is the only one remaining from a network that once boasted more than 100,000 members nationwide. There are 50 members of the local chapter of the society, which was founded to preserve the McGuffey legacy.
Because McGuffey’s writings were based on Christian values and beliefs, interest in the society began to wane when “they decided to remove God and religion from the schools. Those things were no longer in vogue.”
The society purchased the former 78-acre McGuffey Homestead on McGuffey Road in Coitsville and donated it to Mill Creek Park, where it is now known as the McGuffey Preserve.