Teaching Nuns Left Lasting Impressions On Their Pupils
Recently, we reported in this newspaper that there was just one teaching sister left in the Catholic Diocese of Spokane. Her name is Jacqueline Welch and she teaches at Assumption Catholic School. This news prompted a wonderful note filled with memories from Colleen Kelley of Spokane.
“In the third grade at St. Al’s, 1938, Sister Anthony Joseph read to our class ‘Little Boy Lost’ on Friday afternoons if and when we earned that privilege by sitting up straight, keeping silence and paying attention the previous four days.
“Sister Frances Ellen, seventh grade, was a fanatic about grammar. I still flinch when a newsperson says ‘jist’ instead of just or ‘everybody has his.’
“Our eighth-grade nun was the meanest nun in the whole world.
“In our sophomore year, Sister Perpetua, who had to be 93 years old, explained the no-frills facts of life to an innocent, but curious 15-year-old.
“Sister Matilda Mary, a k a Mattie Mae (behind her back) of Holy Names College, explained to our English literature class that she came from a strict Protestant family and read her way into the Catholic church.
“Some people who attended Catholic schools in the ‘30s and ‘40s claimed they majored in guilt and minored in humility.
“I’ll always remember there are ‘5,280 feet in a mile,’ ‘i’ comes before ‘e’ except after ‘c.’ And I’ll always remember that the primary purpose of marriage is the procreation and education of children.”
Summertime queries: Common Ground readers, we’re interested in your thoughts on some issues. We’ve asked a couple of these questions before in this space, but received little feedback. And some questions are new. So here goes:
If a woman looks anorexic at your health club, should you ask health club employees to intervene?
Do you feel sorry at all for Marla Maples or Kathy Lee Gifford?
Do you ever regret you weren’t wilder in your youth?
What’s your fail-safe method of saying no to requests you could - but do not want - to meet?
She said: “After my son was born, a procession of women arrived daily at my house, bearing food and gifts, coming not to see me nor to see the baby, at least not this particular baby, but to summon some buried moment when once they held a baby this small and this new and it was theirs.”
- writer Madeleine Blais.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Drawing of a nun
MEMO: Common Ground is written on alternating weeks by Rebecca Nappi and Dan Webster. Write to them in care of The Spokesman-Review, Features Department, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210-1615. Or fax, (509) 459-5098.