Ray Dreher, a former Marine who served after World War II and again during the Korean War, is helping to keep the St. Vincent DePaul tradition of charity alive in Lockport.

The 81-year-old Lockport native is the president of the St. John the Baptist Conference of the St. Vincent DePaul Society. It is the third-oldest conference in the United States, founded in 1848 by John Timon, Buffalo’s first bishop. Only conferences at in St. Louis and St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City are older.

St. John the Baptist Conference is celebrating its 160th year today during the 5 p.m. Mass at the church at 168 Chestnut St. Dreher did the research to prove that the conference was formed in Lockport Jan. 23, 1848.

“It was quite an experience,” he said. “It was over a year we were working on that and it worked out.”

The conference was not active all 160 years, but today it has 21 members who serve the community in several ways. Several work at the Sister Helen’s Food Pantry, visit nursing homes and take Holy Communion to shut-ins. The conference also helps people with heating bills and emergency prescription medicine.

“We make a personal, face-to-face meetings with a client in need in their homes to see what they need, how we can help them and what they need to do,” Dreher said.

All the work falls under the term “social justice.”

Dreher didn’t grow up a Catholic. A convert, he was once a Sunday school teacher at the Second Presbyterian Church and showed an interest in the differences in the two Christian denominations.

The Presbyterians believe the bread and wine represents body of Christ. The Catholics believe it is the body of Christ.

“It’s a matter of faith, but I don’t have that faith yet,” he told a priest. “I’ll pray on it.”

Dreher was taking metallurgy at the University of Buffalo at the time. “Metallurgy is a fantastic subject,” he said. “There are so many things about metallurgy that are a mystery. If God can give man the ability to take iron and turn it into steel and you can’t see the difference, then why can’t He give a priest the ability to change bread and wine into his body and blood? It’s a matter of faith.”

Dreher, who was an aerial photographer in his first hitch in the Marines and then a rifle range drill instructor, was the supervisor of tool engineering at Harrison Radiator. He retired six months after his wife died in 1988. Ray and Regina had six children.

“A couple of my friends asked me what I was going to do,” he said. “I had so much help in my own life, I just felt that I owed society something. I wanted to pay back to what society gave me and the church gave me.”

Dreher started doing volunteer work at the Dale Association and Roswell Park. He got involved with the income tax program and worked at it 15 years. The volunteers were trained by the Internal Revenue Service, and he learned taxes, becoming an instructor.

In 1994, the pastor of St. John the Baptist was forming a parish council and asked Dreher to be on advisory board for the church. Dreher was a Eucharistic Minister and was asked to be on the spiritual life committee. He studied at the seminary and took courses in liturgy and church history.

Dreher has been a member of the DePaul Society since 1994, when St. John’s renewed its conference activities. He became president three years ago, succeeding Joe Godfrey.

Godfrey found letters attesting to the conference formed at St. John’s Roman Catholic Church Nov. 28, 1848, but the communications and history of the Rev. John Duggan were lost. Dreher corresponded with the General Council of the International Confederation of the Saint-Vincent of Paul Society in Paris, where Frederic Ozanam established the society in 1833.

“They would not give us the certification unless we could prove we were the church,” he said.

After months of research, Dreher received a “Recruitment Letter” written in old French, a language closer to Latin. The letter from the Superior Council was translated by a local French teacher:

“This letter officially attests to the creation of this conference and it’s affiliation to the Society of Saint-Vincent of Paul. We assure you of our prayers for the success of your important task to service of the poor and pray you agree, dear President, the expression of our affectionate devotion in our Lord.”

Over the years, St. John’s, St. Patrick’s and St. Mary’s parishes all had conferences and were active together. The land on Chestnut Street was donated by the McCollum family, who dictated that it should be used by the church for perpetuity.

The conference raises money through grants, fundraisers and church collections. The Vincentians ran the Sister Helen Food Pantry until management was turned over to the parish. Several members still work at the pantry two times a week.

“I think we have more members now than the 1990s, mostly old people,” Dreher said. “Over all, the country is not active as it used to be.”

Contact reporter Bill Wolcott at 439-9222, ext. 6246.