![]() ![]() A playground running the length of the school separated the building from Fulton Street. ![]() Mary's School - 1940Ī solid, red brick building on Gifford Street, probably built in the prosperous nineteen-twenties, featured six classrooms, a library, some utility rooms and possibly the best grade school gymnasium in the city, complete with stage, kitchen, folding mechanical bleachers and an adjacent refreshments room. How does one come to belong? Well, this is how it happened for me, back in that distant day. I'm coming to think that the important thing for us, for me in particular, was simply belonging to that ancient, vast, rule-ridden, guilt-haunted and liturgy-rich community. We came to know Catholic religious professionals as human and fallible, but still 'set apart' from the rest of us. The elaborately habited nuns have largely disappeared from the public eye. Priests were officially important in the Catholic community, but they didn't have much direct involvement with the schools. (Hence: Volume 0!)Īfter eighty thousand words, I'm not sure I have answered my own question. I can only respond that it's my memory and it's what I've go to go on.Īs the book jacket says, I've committed a couple of Memoirs already - of my seminary years (Volume I) and my priesting years (Volume II.) I decided to go back and consider where that choice of vocation might have come from, and how I got to be that way. And I've learned that they are often right. I can almost hear my classmates saying, Wait. To my patient wife, who has heard these stories many times, and even read them a few times To the parents and parent-figures who supported us as best they could in our struggle toward adulthood and maturity To the Sisters of the Adrian Dominicans who dedicated their lives to teaching us the basics and enriching our childhoods and our adolescences without getting any credit from our self-involved selves To my classmates, living and passed, who gave me something to belong to, who have remained, despite our many differences, connected and caring over the span of seventy years or more Library of Congress Control Number: 2016906764 The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.Īny people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only. ![]() No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.īecause of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. And he works at the Bordons Ice Cream Factory and the Elgin Daily Courier News and Barnetts Junior Miss store and Edwards Jewelers but none of these venues give him a clue as to his future. Edward High School Green Wave (if only as a manager,) develops attitudes and a kind of identity if only as a class clown,) sets his sights on Notre Dame University and thinks about the priesthood, but not yet. He will become steeped in the liturgy and language of the Catholic Church as it presented itself at the time, and come to feel set apart from the non-Catholics and special, but not always in a good way.Ĭharging into adolescence cars and girls and algebra he joins the St. He will find himself plunged into a world of mystery, guided by white-robed nuns who speak a mysterious language and live in a separate world from ordinary people. In l940, the nation hovers on the brink of World War II, and a small and fearful six-year-old trembles on the brink of first grade at St.
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