Every time I think, I’ve written my last memoir about my experiences as a young girl who was raised as a Catholic and attended twelve years of Catholic School. I remember yet another experience that has lain dormant deep down in my oldest memories.

Catholic School Classroom in the 1950s

In fact, almost every experience I had up until my eighteenth birthday affected my relationship with the Catholic Church and the nuns that taught me everything from basic math to calculus, how to read and write English Grammar properly, and how to read Latin and speak French. I still retain the ability to read French after almost fifty years. Thanks to Sister Renard, my French teacher, for three years. And more than any other lesson I learned was self-control and knowing when to keep my mouth shut. And keeping a secret is not necessarily a lie.

I come from a fairly large Catholic family. I had five sisters and one brother. My twin sister and I were the youngest. We were born in 1951. And my middle sisters were seven and eight years older than me, and my twin. My older sister Jean was thirteen years older than us, and my brother was nineteen years older. Both my older brother and my sister Jean have passed away.

My next two older sisters both attended Catholic School through high school. I do not know how their Catholic School education affected them, but I do know how it affected me. Of course, since my older sisters and my twin, and I attended school, we were all affected and part of the baby boomer generation. After World War II there was a tremendous increase in the number of babies born after World War II when American soldiers returned from serving time in the military during WWII and the Korean War.

Elementary Catholic School classrooms were overcrowded. In first grade, I didn’t have my own seat. At first, I sat on the windowsill, and later I got my own desk and chair, but it was parked directly behind a large post that supported the ceiling. And I could only see the blackboard if I stuck my head out on either side of the pole. I could hear everything alright, but I could see anything but that pole, including what was written on the blackboard. At first, I would raise my hand to get the attention Sister John Michael’s attention, but she either couldn’t see my arm flagging her down, or she was intentionally ignoring me.

I was a quiet kid and tried to keep my head down and out of trouble for the most part. Really, the last thing you wanted to do was gain the attention of any of the nuns during your tenure as a Catholic School student. Because if you did, you would get your name written on the blackboard, and you would have to stay after school and do chores or write things like I will not talk during class one hundred times. I used to go down the page and write each word one hundred times and then do the same for all the other words until they were written one hundred times.

During my elementary school years, I had two lay teachers, Miss Norris and Mr. McElliot, my fifth-grade teacher. It just so happened that Mr. McElliot knew my older brother and had worked with him at the Maple Shade Post Office. And he told me that my brother was one of the smartest people he ever met. I had always been extremely proud of my brother, Harry, because he was the first person in my family to go to college and earned his Ph.D. in Psychology.

Later, my sister, Elizabeth, went to college. She earned a nursing degree and also taught high school. I went to college when I was thirty-six to the Tyler School of Art in Pennsylvania and earned two degrees in art by the time I was forty. My English teachers at Tyler always asked me if I attended Catholic School because of my grasp of grammar and literature. And the ability to write a coherent sentence and spell correctly.

Aside from learning reading, writing, and Arithmetic in Catholic School, I learned self-control. Because if you didn’t know how to sit quietly in the classroom, you would get your hand whacked with a wooden ruler with a metal edge. Over the eight years I attended Catholic grade school, I had my head bashed into the blackboard multiple times. Usually, it was for passing notes to other students. But, more often, it was because I had a difficult time doing math, especially the higher maths like geometry and algebra. You will be happy to know that eventually, I did finally grasps math. But, it didn’t occur until much later when as an adult, I decided to volunteer to teach basic skills to adults who didn’t graduate from high school and were trying to earn their GED. I purchased a math book and then went through it from beginning to end and finally taught myself math. And I was then able to teach that skill to my GED students. But, I really owed the nuns for their perseverance in trying to teach me math for twelve years.

When I look back at the twelve years that I spent in Catholic School, the year that stands out the most for me was fourth grade when Sister Joseph Catherine was my teacher. My fourth-grade class was held in the basement of the Catholic School on the stage. Because the school was so overpopulated by students that they ran out of classrooms. Sister Joseph Catherine was petite. In fact, she was only a few inches taller than I was at nine years old. But within her small stature was hiding a whole lot of repressed rage and anger. I have no idea what she was so mad about, but it was clear to everyone that had ears and eyes in their head that they better not cross her. Keep your head down and your mouth shut.

But for no reason that I was ever able to discern Sister Joseph, Catherine picked me to be her constant companion and slave. Everywhere she went, I went. And I had to carry her books and whatever else she needed to be transported from one place to another. In class, it behooved everyone to do as she told, or there would be hell to pay. I can not remember what I did in her classroom to aggravate her, but one day she called me up to the blackboard to solve a math problem. As I have mentioned, math was not a strong point for me. So, Sister Joseph Catherine wrote a problem on the blackboard with chalk and called me up to solve it.

Of course, my mind went completely blank, one reason being my difficulty with math and, secondly, because she was standing behind me berating me at the top of her voice about how stupid I was. This did not encourage me. I just stood there dumbfounded, my mind blank, shaking like a leaf. She came up behind me and banged my head repeatedly into the blackboard in front of the whole class. Who for once was completely silent. Not a word was said. I don’t remember how the incident ended. I did know that my days of being her slave were over. And I refused to follow her around and carry her stuff. When I went home, I told my parents what happened, and my mother said she was going to go and talk to Sister Joseph Catherine. And I begged her now to because I thought it would get worse for me in the classroom.

Looking back on it, I think I should have let my mother have a word with her, a harsh word. Maybe it would have prevented all of Sister Joseph Catherine from physically attacking any future students. Fortunately, the following year in the fifth grade, I had Mr. McElliot as a teacher. And he was a great teacher that made learning fun and interesting. He encouraged us to ask questions and have opinions. Needless to say, I did much better in his class. And he encouraged us to go to the library and read and learn about the world. And that is exactly what I did for the rest of my life.

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