Narrative Summary
Interview with Judith Dasovich by Isaac McKnight
Judith (Judy) Dasovich was born in the 1950s in St. Louis County, Minnesota, where she
spend most of her young life. She is a retired medical physician but now teaches at Ozark
Technical School in Springfield, Missouri.
Growing up in Minnesota at the time did, she was surrounded by Catholic faith. Her
father had been raised catholic, but her mother had not. Her mother eventually converted to
Catholicism (much against what she believed) to bring peace to her families and to marry her
father. So, Judy was raised Catholic, but had many of the same skepticisms that her mom had,
namely, purgatory and the indulgences that could be purchased. She distinctly recalled a time in
catechism when a nun asked the class if they knew any non-Catholics (not just non-Christians),
they all did and then the nun turned around and told them that all those friends were going hell.
At the age of 12 some events in her life lead her to check out mentally and spiritually from the
Catholic Church until she got to college. When she got to college in Iowa City she got interested
in a Catholic group with a leader who was very outspoken about liberal topics such as gay
marriage and that group really became a good thing in her life.
She recalls thinking about how powerless women were in the world when she was about
12, and when she was 14 her mom got her a subscription to “Ms. Magazine” which main focus
was empowering young women to get take action.
When asked about her religious life and how it affects her day-to-day life, she says she
doesn’t a divide between how they affect each other. She looks around and feels the presence of
something bigger and the presence of a creator. As far as her moral code goes, she doesn’t think
that you need to be religious to be moral, stating that she knows a lot of outspoken atheists that
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are some of the most moral people she knows.
When she was married, she became in the position where she could do a lot of
volunteering. It started at the kitchen here in Springfield, but then she was able to volunteer full
time as a physician. She sees her time and what she has done volunteering as a way to mimic the
healing that Jesus did. It was a very spiritual and emotional experience for her, and she really
enjoyed getting to know the patients.
When asked about what advice she would give young people today, she said that she
wishes we would be more skeptical in pursuing the truth. Looking back, she again stated the
good times she in college with her peers in the Catholic student center.
When she moved away from Iowa city, she didn’t go to church very often, mainly
because of the hypocrisy. She did state, however, that she has a little regret about not going to
church for so long because that need was still in her life, even though she didn’t know. When her
kids were born is when she realized that it was time to go back even though it all still didn’t
make sense to her.
Living in the Ozarks now, she’s surprised about how conservative everyone is. She
recalled when her and her husband first moved Columbia, Missouri seeing a sign that said
“Guns, Liquor, Ammo” and started to cry. Looking back, she thinks it was just preparing her for
Springfield, and she feels it has made her be more tolerant. From a spiritual perspective, moving
to the Ozarks has affected her tolerance the same way, but it also has contributed to the need of
skepticism. She recalled religious leaders that have gotten into trouble in the area, and overall
beliefs that just aren’t true to her.
The day I interviewed her was actually only the day after she had decided to leave her
church. The main reason she is leaving is the split over the past few months on gay rights and
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speakers that have been coming to the church. The church had been struggling before with
LGBT things, and now the preacher has had too much control and it’s finally enough. She’s
looking forward to going to other churches, mainly with her good friend L. Hobbs.
One opinion she wanted to get across is that God has no gender, and that “he” is just such
a large topic that “he” has to be personified. She feels that this personification has lead to men
abusing some power, especially in the religious areas.
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