Written by Mike Strong, Class of 1960
As I reflect on the old schools & Ivy Hall, my class of "60, was the first I think to have attended the new kindergarten. Mother Hershey, assisted by Mother Monk (one of the original RCE founders) and a young Spanish woman, who would later become the wife of Joseph Lalley, were our instructors. The class was 1/2 day and co-ed. First form, Mother Joubert, we were in a large room behind what had been the old hotel. My memory is somwhat vague for that year--the year I learned to read "Dick and Jane". I think that we might have been co-ed that year. I remember being chosen along with Susan Patterson to portray the founding priest and first nun of the RCE. We were dressed up and stood on the stage at Ivy Hall in front of the admiring sisters and Reverend Mother Sharry who was the head of the order and was visiting from Boston. Her visits were always a BIG deal.
To get from our class to Ivy Hall we had to walk through the bowels of the old hotel--down a dark and winding tunnel. Always frightening, but always exciting at the same time. Because of the burgeoning success of the boys school, the class was now segregated. By Second Form- Mother Day- we were placed in a room alongside of the old hotel--it appeared to have been part of an old greenhouse. This room though had a special cupboard that held each student's papers and lunch boxes. Third Form presented another dilemma. We were reunited with Mother Hache and placed in a room at the SGP Secretarial School. Here all of the young boys were fawned over by the 18-20 yr old female students. I remember that we all fell in love with Stewart Pegram--the most beautiful girl anyone had ever seen. Later that year they moved us to the old building (former hotel) and placed us on the 2nd or 3rd floor. The advantage of this was that we now had to move past and through any assembly of SGP's students. This always created quite a commotion.
By Fourth Form they had assembled us in the old Gibbons Hall Carriage House. There we would move from one room on the first floor to another and then to the second floor where 6th & 7th Forms would be regulated by a no-nonsense but respected RCE nun, Mother Farragher. She was Boston Irish and never let us forget it. She shared her love of Boston sports and was an outstanding instructor from a large Irish family and knew how to handle a bunch of rowdy adolescents who were starting to feel their oats.
By 8th Form we were housed in Pinto's home. Our classroom also housed the school "library", which simply consisted of built-in bookshelves that surrounded the classroom. The shelves contained all of the Landmark series of biographies and American histories. We were given free rein to the books. In fact, we were required to read and write a book report each month from 4th form through 8th form. Each summer we would be given a list of "suggested" reading and were supposed to deliver book reports from summer reading the following fall. I recently asked my 6th grade and 8th grade grandkids if they have to write book reports. The answer was "no." Sixty years of declining test scores in reading, writing, geography, history, language skills, etc. Could we use their system today? We were all blessed to have been part of the vision of those who administered SGP & GH.
Not only was the system demanding in the class room--French in first grade; Latin by fourth grade; etc. but the system demanded developing public speaking skills, no matter how terrifying that might be. Gibbons Hall had a program dubbed the "Thespians." Under the tutorial of Miss Buquo and Mother Farragher 6th-7th-8th form students were given roles in student productions such as "Julius Caesar" and "Tom Sawyer" (I was dropped from Caesar--too much carrying on) but played Judge Thatcher in Tom Sawyer.)
Students didn't "try out", they were assigned roles and given the scripts and were told to learn them! Relentless practices would result in perfection. The productions and the positive response from the audiences went a long way, I'm sure, in instilling self confidence in the performers.
Another way that self confidence was instilled in the students was during the lunch room sessions at Ivy Hall. Each 8th Form student was designated a "captain" of his lunch table. The eight seat table, three on each side, and a student at each end, was made up of students from each form. The 8th Form student was in charge of saying grace before meals, maintaining order, supervising meal clean-up, and making certain announcements during lunch time. The hi-light of these announcements was when the 8th former had to give a verbal report to the entire student body about the annual 8th form trip to Washington, D. C. These were very stressful, but in looking back it was the kind of training that should be required of every 8th grader today.
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