János Réthy was born on March 20, 1896, in Budapest. He was ordained a priest on March 20 or 21, 1920. He arrived in the United States in 1922 and, beginning in 1924, served as pastor to the Hungarian Catholic congregation in Leechburg, Pennsylvania. On May 12, 1927, he took over leadership of the St. Stephen Roman Catholic Hungarian Parish in McKeesport, which he served for nineteen years until his death. At the beginning of his tenure as pastor, he had the church renovated, and then carried out his predecessor’s long-standing plan to build a Hungarian Catholic elementary school. The school’s cornerstone was laid on July 4, 1934; classes began that same September with 180 children, and the solemn consecration ceremony was held on July 4, 1935. During construction, Réthy and Mother Friderika visited local factories in an effort to obtain building materials at a discount or as donations. During her tenure, the Holy Name Society flourished, growing to about three hundred members, and in 1930, the Little Flower Society was founded at her initiative. She battled illness during the last two years of her life. She died in McKeesport on July 13, 1946, at the age of fifty. For five months after her death, Carmelite fathers cared for the parish.