‘St. Joe and Paul’

They’ve torn down my old school, Sts. Joseph and Paul Grade School in Owensboro, Kentucky. I’m reminded that our children have been growing up but don’t quite realize it. They don’t discern the memories they’re accumulating.

St. Joe and Paul we called it. It’s funny the things that come flooding back from this place that is no more.

I remember wonderful red apples in a book in the first grade. Sister Dorothy Marie’s face shown so pleasantly from her Ursuline bonnet.

I was Sister George Ann’s “little messenger boy” in the second grade. Sister George Ann became president of Brescia College in Owensboro where I also went to school. She died a while back of cancer.

Sister Angelica was indeed an angel, such a kind person. Sister Mary Mercy was very strict and disciplined, but I knew her gentleness, too. Sister Sylvia Mary kept us nailed in our desks and our desks nailed to the floor. But I also remember taking a keen interest in “Voyages in English” that year.

I got my comeuppance as Sister Mary Rose told me one day, “You think you’re pretty smart, Tommy Russell, but you’re just average, boy, just average.”

Sister Mary Rose gave me an “H” on my Kentucky scrapbook. My family had gone on a trip around the state and I included silly things in my scrapbook: bark from a tree at the Lincoln Birthplace Memorial and a rock from the entrance to Mammoth cave. Our grades were S-, S, S+, H, and E in those days, with the more familiar D and F on the other end. Sister Mary Ruth succeeded Sister George Ann as president of Brescia.

Sister Rosita, my eighth grade teacher, got bopped on the head with a ball on the playground, knocking her bonnet off. You can believe there were wide eyes on the playground at that noon recess.

School days, what days they were! I recall tracing an outline of the National Cathedral on a stencil for the school paper. Every class put on a play. I recall dancing a minuet in knickers. I was City Mouse one year and had to eat real crackers on stage!

I so well remember serving Mass. “Ad Deum qui laetificat, juventutem meam.” That was pretty easy. The “Suscipiat” was another matter. I recall laying out vestments, making neat designs with the cincture.

Every year we’d be surprised with fried chicken at lunch and we’d ask Sister what was the special occasion. It was a golden opportunity to tell us about the Feast of Our Lady of Prompt Succor.

I remember the day I learned to spell “Immaculate Conception” and I ran to tell Sister Mary Rose. Sister Mary Mercy told us how important it was to have clean hands and fingernails, “It’s the first thing people notice about you.”

Sister Rosita said never begin a letter with the word “I.” Always think of a way to say something about your reader first, that way you’ll get their attention, she said. It’s also a good way to think about humility.

Sister Aloise, our principal, would play classical music during lunch, and a student would walk around with the name of the piece on a sign. Such odd words! I never entered the contest Sister Aloise conducted to see who could name the most classical melodies.

My school was all education, whether I was warming my hands on the chimney at back of church or having Sister Mary Rose show me how to put depth perspective in a picture of a lane. I learned the meaning of the word “uniform” by aligning all the slats in the Venetian blinds in the cafeteria. Sister Rosita taught me.

I value my Catholic education as one of the great treasures of my life. Those Ursuline nuns gave me gifts of love and friendship and knowledge and faith. My heart is full of fondness for them, and gratitude.

Our children are receiving their education now. It warms my heart to think of the richness of the thing that is happening. We’ll never know all about it. It will be something that belongs to them.

written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on September 28th, 1986