A Unique Elementary School Experience...

Sister James Edward, Sisters of the Holy Names, with friends, around 1950

I attended kindergarten at Elmer Avenue Elementary School in Schenectady.  It was less than a mile from home and I walked there and back every day at the age of four.  It was a different time.  When it was time for me to start elementary school in earnest, there was never any doubt that I would follow my older brother and sister to the school associated with our church, St. John the Evangelist, about which I have written many blog entries. 

At the time I started at St. John's, the school was housed in two rather large Victorian residential buildings.  First though third grades were held in a building that had at one time served as the residence of Mr. Bert Curley, the first organist and choir director of the church, starting in 1905.  It was behind the church, facing Eastern Avenue.  By 1945, the building housed a couple of restrooms, some classrooms, and a room upstairs that could be used by a school nurse.  There was also a closed solarium or sun porch that was used as a lunch room.

The other building was on the east of the church, facing Union Street.  It held fourth through eighth grade classrooms and a solarium that served as the music room.  It also was the residence for the nuns who ran and staffed the school, so it included their kitchen, dining room, and sleeping quarters.  The nuns were of a French-Canadian order, The Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary.

My first grade teacher was a young nun named Rolande Cassidy who had entered the order in 1937.  She had taken the name Sister James Edward (at that time, new sisters took the names of saints whom they particularly admired.)  We always knew her as Sister James.

We've all heard the stories of nuns who are threatening disciplinarians.  My experience with the nuns who taught me through sixth grade certainly doesn't support that myth.  Starting with Sister James Edward and subsequently Sister Alice, Frances Ovila, and others, my perception was of a group of selfless, kindly, loving and devoted women in service to their God and church.  There were of course moments when I deserved and received discipline at the hands of the good sisters, but I have no recollection of anything damaging to my psyche.  These were wonderful years, taking place immediately after the end of World War II.

There were disadvantages to attending a small parochial school at that time.  We had no formal physical education program because we had no gymnasium (the "new" school, built in the 1950s that replaced the old buildings included a gymnasium).  And there was no formal science education as there were no lab or science classroom facilities.

On the other hand, we were thoroughly versed in the written and spoken word and certainly in the tenets of our faith.  We wrote essays or "papers" starting in the third grade.  We were expected to use proper grammar at all times, and the nuns I knew were not shy about correcting our speech.  We learned cursive writing from the second grade on, with daily writing drills.  And one of my fondest memories was starting each day reciting the Pledge of Allegiance facing the flag with our hands over our hearts, followed by the Lord's Prayer.  It was a simpler time, but those skills have served me well.  I'm still accused of being part of the Grammar Police.

Even though my parents transferred me to a public school starting in seventh grade, I remained close to many of my old St. John's classmates.  In 2003, they reached out to me to invite me to a 50th reunion of our elementary school class!  I flew to Albany and rented a car for the appointed weekend.  On Friday night, I joined Mike Leding, Noreen Quinn (Now Noreen Bennett, and others at a pizzeria for an informal Friday night gathering.  There were wonderful recollections among a group of old comrades.

On Saturday evening, we were to have a formal banquet at the old Mohawk Club, now called the Stockade Inn in Schenectady's historic Stockade Area.  The Guest of Honor was to be none other than Sister James, now constrained to a wheelchair and blind, but still living and eager to attend.  I dressed up and arrived at the Inn a few minutes early.  I bumped into Maury Lynch in the lounge.  We had probably not seen each other for 45 years.  Soon we heard a commotion coming from the ballroom and meandered that way.

As we entered the ballroom with its tables arranged beautifully with fresh-cut flowers and elegant place settings, I spotted someone in a wheelchair at the opposite end of the setup.  "Where's that old nun?" I called out, echoing a greeting often used by our old pastor, Father Arnold J. English, when he was being  somewhat mischievous.  Without hesitation, I heard back, "I can't see you, but it's either Michael Leding or Bobby Mead!"  I knew I was in the right place.

We had a fabulous banquet.  Mike acted as Master of Ceremonies, his natural calling.  My favorite line of the night, as Mike was asking Sister James to say a few words, "Sister, you're the only woman in the crowd who doesn't color her hair,"  We basked in a sea of memories and stories and recollections until late in the evening.

It was not long after that wonderful evening that I received the news that Sister James had passed on.  I like to think that God allowed her that last party as a favor to us before He called her home.