One Rosary at at Time: On a Mission For Mother Mary

by Kim Roberts

What began as a way to keep busy during his wife’s battle with kidney cancer, quickly turned into a mission for Mother Mary.

William “Billy” Daly would spend hours sitting by his beloved wife’s side as she received blood transfusions and chemo treatments. Having been married for 60 years, he wanted to have something to do with his hands while he was keeping her company and praying – so he began making rosaries. To date, he has made approximately 13,000 rosaries.

“I had never made a rosary before, so I guess you can say – with the help of the internet – I am a self-taught man,” said the 87-year-old Daly, a proud graduate of De La Salle High School. “I knew this was something I could do while I sat with my wife Cathy. I’m not sure what started me on this path or gave me the ideas to start making rosaries other than the Holy Spirit whispering in my ear.”

To help him with his new mission, his three daughters (Sharon Hamblin, Susan Lange and Cynthia Jones) went online to Mary’s Rosary’s website, a site with tutorials with directions for how to handcraft a rosary, buy all the supplies and print out paper instructions. Daly says by the tenth rosary he was doing it all on his own.

“Each rosary is precisely made with love,” added Daly. “It has become like second nature for me and time really flies when I am working on these rosaries.”

His family could not be prouder of him and his one-man ministry to provide handmade rosaries to the doctors, nurses and other healthcare providers as well as St. Angela Merici parish purely out of the goodness of his heart and love for his late wife Cathy.

“We were original founders of St. Angela Merici Parish. I always noticed there were these rosaries in baskets in the back of church that came from China and weren’t very well made,” said Daly. “They weren’t handmade and were glued together, and I thought ‘I could do better job than that for our parishioners,’ so the rosaries I make not only go to healthcare workers, they are in baskets at the back of our church for anyone who may need one.”

“He has shared the handmade rosaries with St. Angela Merici’s parishioners on a regular rotation by placing them in baskets at the entrances to the church,” said one of his daughter’s Susan Lange. “He would refill the baskets weekly and would say that he would continue making them for as long as he could whenever the baskets were empty.”

Daly felt called to encourage the continuation of this ministry by hosting a “rosary making lesson” for his daughters and his many nieces and nephews so they can learn the “family ministry” as well.

Possessing the patience of Job, Daly can teach a rosary making master class with his nimble fingers moving lovingly back and forth making knots on the string and selecting just the right beads to slide down that string before tying the whole thing off.

“He is a true inspiration of love and strength and pure definition of kindness to everyone he meets,” Lange said. “He hosted a cousin tutorial at his house to teach all generations of the family to make the rosaries. This has really become a family affair, and we all work at our
own pace.”

Niece Bridget LaForge added that her uncle is spreading the good news to people of every age – kids young and old – by gathering everyone around the table to make rosaries together, it has been just beautiful.

“The torch is being passed on to the next generation of our family,” she said.

Daly is now making rosaries for the residents and staff of Lambeth House where he has lived for the past year, but he tells them they must have their own priest bless them and pray a decade of the Rosary with him before they leave. A lot of the residents bring their rosaries to Mass each Friday as well.

“I think the infusion center rosaries brought joy and peace to those that were getting treatments and their loved ones that were with them during those treatments,” Lange said. “And watching my dad make them was a distraction from the situation they were in.”

Daly says it takes one hour to make one rosary, and they all look basically the same, but there are so many different color choices, each one is a masterpiece and no two are alike allowing your imagination to run away with you.

“I plan to keep on making rosaries until I just can’t make them anymore,” Daly said. “It’s my mission and honor to provide these for those who need them and as long as people are asking for them, I will make them.”