  7andkelly Member Username: 7andkelly Post Number: 7 Registered: 04-2008 |
Jcole: Julius was quite the painter. I remember son Philip. | ||
Kellyroad Member Username: Kellyroad Post Number: 276 Registered: 04-2007 |
7andkelly: Welcome to the forum, although I had to do a double take to realize your post name and 7_and_Kelly_Kid are eerily similar. I'm a fan of the kid so I'll try to avoid any mixup. Anyway, I do remember the Holy Name Society. My father was an active member, never was a member myself. Attending the father and son pancake breakfast after 7:30 Mass was the highlight. I remember one of the hosts of Michigan Outdoors showed a travelogue during the breakfast. I felt like that guy was really famous since he was from channel 7 TV. I agree lighting the candles especially in the St. Jude chapel was real special. I don't know if it was the solitude of the chapel, or the fact that St. Jude is the patron saint of hopeless cases that made candle lighting seem more significant in the chapel. I felt like the intersession of St. Jude was to be reserved for only special cases nothing frivolous. The quiet of the room with the statue of St. Jude, the altar right next to you conveyed a powerful and reflective mood. "Never peek in those folded pieces of paper" I was told, "Those are peoples private prayers"....Later in life I learned those were special requests for those really sick or distraught. Benediction and devotion to St. Jude was well attended during the 60s.... "St Jude, help of the hopeless, aid me in my distress (repeat 3 times) and "Blessed apostle of confidence, we invoke thee" (repeat 3 times)...that prayer, I recall as a youngster, was very poignant....I still believe so today. I'm not sure if it was the credit union or the Dad's club that sponsored movies at the Ramona. I do remember the place was packed and served as a perfect example of anarchy. (Message edited by Kellyroad on April 03, 2008) | ||
Jcole Member Username: Jcole Post Number: 24 Registered: 04-2005 |
7andKelly, If I remember correctly, Julius worked as a graphic artist for Ameritech. I remember a Halloween costume he made for Mike where he was a box of Marlboro's. Back a few days ago, someone mentioned the hot dog sales. Those were awesome. As Catholic school kids, we usually brought lunch for home, or like me, walked home at lunch time, so it was way cool to be able to buy hot dogs, with the chance of getting the rubber dog!! Man, can you imagine today if the schools wrapped a nickel and stuck in a cupcake? Lawsuit waiting to happen. Undoubtedly, someone would swallow one, or choke on it, or try to eat the rubber hot dog. Had we done that, we would have gotten a demerit. | ||
7andkelly Member Username: 7andkelly Post Number: 9 Registered: 04-2008 |
Yeah, we would find out the rubber hotdog was made in China, and was toxic. The company that imported it would go bankrupt. I remember the brown bag lunch. My Mom invented the Jam Sandwich because I hated peanut butter. Chocolate milk was never better than then ones out of the old vending machines just inside the main front door (to the left as you walked in). My first one was a mistake because I wanted plain milk, but forgot to turn the manual switch off of chocolate. Having no more nickles, and with food wasting out of the question, I felt forced to drink it, and it was delicious! What a miraculous relief! | ||
Campfire_girl Member Username: Campfire_girl Post Number: 27 Registered: 03-2008 |
7kelly kid - Thanks for the "Paula" reminder! I couldn't remember her name for the life of me! Don't know when the clean-up will be scheduled, but will send a post as soon as I do. I FORGOT about the rubber hot dog! Never got one of those - but I was lucky enough to get a nickel cupcake! LOL - can't imagine an innocent game like that being allowed today! Fr. Robert re-instituted the St. Jude Novena this fall. It was a great success, with Bishop Quinn presiding at one of the Masses. I was out of town for work, but listened in to the Novena via "open cell phone". I hadn't been to a Novena at St. Jude since I went with my parents - and it was wonderful! So thankful that this pastor brought it back! | ||
Jcole Member Username: Jcole Post Number: 27 Registered: 04-2005 |
Do you all remember paper drives on the 7 mile blacktop? It's amazing to remember how excited we got collecting papers and tying them up to take to the big semis. I'm trying to remember if we got prizes for the most poundage or something like that. And how about the magazine drive every year. I know we got prizes for that. I think the grand prize was usually a bike. And then there were the greeting card and wrapping paper sale, but the big one was the Christmas seal sale. I won a Holy Family statue that had a rosary in the base. The topper was that if you left it under a light, the whole thing glowed in the dark. Talk about scaring the crap out of a kid. Try waking up in the middle of the night, having forgotten about the statue, and having Jesus, Mary and Joseph radiating light from your dresser. | ||
Campfire_girl Member Username: Campfire_girl Post Number: 28 Registered: 03-2008 |
JCole - you have an incredible memory! Yep, I sure do remember the paper drives - AND the Glow in the Dark Holy Family!••• What was the deal on the Christmas Seals? Were we buying more Pagan Babies? | ||
Jcole Member Username: Jcole Post Number: 28 Registered: 04-2005 |
It was kind of like that. the money went to help kids in underdeveloped countries. Sometimes the incredible memory is a curse. I have a head full of the most esoteric trivia, and the important stuff gets lost. | ||
7andkelly Member Username: 7andkelly Post Number: 10 Registered: 04-2008 |
If the school has a reunion day or an open house, it would be great to walk those Hallowed halls once again. I have quite a few plastic statues and other religious articles I got from the school as prizes for magazine sales and such. I don't even think it's allowed to throw them away. My favorite is a nativity scene given to my by Sr. Joel Marie (my favorite teacher). It could be displayed in its cardboard box which had a cellophane front, or outside the box. I bring it out every Christmas. Sr. Joel Marie later changed her name to Sr. Sabina Jabour. She moved to Adrian at some point. | ||
7andkelly Member Username: 7andkelly Post Number: 11 Registered: 04-2008 |
Speaking of the still relevant issue of feeding the poor, do you remember those neat cardboard banks they used to give us each lent. They came as a flat sheet, and you folded them into a bank. And those little yellow church envelopes for the kids. It was fun dropping them in the basket. Remember when the usher had the basket on the pole. Maybe they didn't trust us. Of course, it was mostly cash in those days. I still have some of those envelopes that I used to put old coins in, such as buffalo nickels, hexagonal Canadian nickels, Kennedy half dollars and so forth. | ||
Kellyroad Member Username: Kellyroad Post Number: 279 Registered: 04-2007 |
7andkelly: And I thought I was a packrat. I remember very well the cardboard banks, I think sponsored by the Propagation of Faith. Folding them was tricky as my manual dexterity as a young one was challenged. Often times scotch tape or masking tape would keep the bank together for at least forty days. Yes, the ushers I thought had a cool job..got to use those baskets on poles, sat in a special section in the back of the church, wore an embroidered Navy blazer with gray slacks, had a special room in the basement where they'd count the money. The club, 50/50 raffle etc. etc. The crucifix I had earned in the 1st grade (or my parent had earned) for either selling magazine subscriptions or raffle tickets (sorry the details are blurred at this point) still exists in my home today almost 50 years later. | ||
Kellyroad Member Username: Kellyroad Post Number: 280 Registered: 04-2007 |
JCole: Since it was my job at home to bundle the newspapers in twine AND spend an entire Saturday afternoon on the blacktop "volunteering" on the trucks the Paper drives are indelibly etched in my mind. I vividly recall the bucket brigade style of hauling those bundles from trunk to truck and stacking neatly so as to maximize storage. Usually 4 trucks would get filled. Since, the blacktop was part of the "Eastwood neighborhood" it was a foregone conclusion the gang would be there to help out. And yes there were prizes for the most papers. It was interesting to see the pickup trucks and/or station wagons come in stuffed with papers trying to claim a prize. | ||
Jcole Member Username: Jcole Post Number: 29 Registered: 04-2005 |
I remember saving newspapers for 3 months stacked up in the garage, and loading them in the trunk of my dad's big Chrysler. Sometimes, if for some reason we didn't have many, or maybe it was overflow that wouldn't fit in the trunk, we'd load em up in the red wagon, and walk on down. The Christmas seal drive was part or the Holy Childhood Association, and it is still active today. I just looked it up. I also saw a sheet of them on sale on Ebay. Go figure. | ||
Campfire_girl Member Username: Campfire_girl Post Number: 29 Registered: 03-2008 |
You all are the best! I love checking in during the work day to re-live more wonderful memories! Apparently the offertory baskets are indestructible, as they are still in use - long handles and all - and are still stacked in the back of the church before use! I thought I was the only one to keep some of the plastic holy awards! I KNOW there's a rule SOMEWHERE that we can't throw them away. I still have one little Blessed Mother Statue still in it's cardboard box. | ||
7andkelly Member Username: 7andkelly Post Number: 14 Registered: 04-2008 |
I hated doing the science projects, but it was nice walking through the gym during the Science Fair to see all the fine work the parents had done. The best ones had buttons that turned on lights or motors. | ||
7andkelly Member Username: 7andkelly Post Number: 15 Registered: 04-2008 |
Remember the last day of school. That was the day the teachers had us sanding the inside edges of our books so they would be ready for the next year. In the lower grades, they sent those little wooden chairs home with select kids for their parents to paint and shellac during the summer. | ||
7andkelly Member Username: 7andkelly Post Number: 16 Registered: 04-2008 |
Remember the high windows in the old part of the school. It was fun watching Sister use the long metal pole with the notch to unlatch and open those windows. | ||
Kellyroad Member Username: Kellyroad Post Number: 282 Registered: 04-2007 |
7andkelly: if the window was stuck one of the more athletic boys got to climb on the radiator up to the window sill and manually unlock or close the window. For some reason my fifth grade science project won 3rd prize (a white ribbon). It was a chart of the solar system with all the distances of the planets from the sun with their circumferences. Funny thing, I did it myself by just merely copying an existing solar chart we had hanging in our recreation room right next to the map of the world. Sister Robert Marie gave me an A in science that quarter. The next year Sister Treseta (sp?) Ann went ballistic on our all boys 6th grade class for the inept contributions to the Science Fair. Larry A (from Saratoga) brought in a automobile engine (his brother was a car guy) others had crystal sets or paper mache lava mountains...not her idea of science. She wasn't one to mince words. More on the all boys 6th grade class later | ||
Crew Member Username: Crew Post Number: 1416 Registered: 02-2004 |
7andKelly, We had to sand the edges of our books too at St. Peter up the road in Harper Woods. We each had to bring in a piece of sandpaper from home on the last day of school. | ||
Kellyroad Member Username: Kellyroad Post Number: 283 Registered: 04-2007 |
Crew: Sandpapering the books along with covering them in either brown paper or contact paper and stacking them neatly on the back shelf above the clothes hooks was an annual event, probably at most catholic schools. You had to keep that yearly book rental affordable ($5.00 at St. Jude in the 60s) | ||
Crew Member Username: Crew Post Number: 1417 Registered: 02-2004 |
We'd get a long list of required supplies that we had to purchase and bring the first day of class. I remember going to Kresge's at Eastland with my sisters and mother to purchase our yearly supplies. | ||
7andkelly Member Username: 7andkelly Post Number: 17 Registered: 04-2008 |
The nuns had quite an advantage over us. Their rosaries had 15 decades to our 5... and theirs were at the ready. I wonder if they make a 20 decade rosary now that Pope John Paul II established the Luminous Mysteries. And they had those cool pen and pencil holders which hung from their belts. I liked the older style habits the best. You really would not question their authority, to this day, or ever. They worked for nothing. True Christians in every sense. | ||
Jcole Member Username: Jcole Post Number: 32 Registered: 04-2005 |
There was one nun that my sister's and brother used to talk about(I can't remember her name) that had grown up with a bunch of brothers and had been quite a tomboy in her day. When a kid would misbehave, she used to take off her rosary and belt before disciplining them. when they saw her unbuckle that belt, they knew they were in for a really good whacking. I, for one, remember Sr. Ellen Richard as a really strict disciplinarian. I had to kneel in the back of the room with a stack of encyclopedias in my arms, stand in front of the classroom with masking tape over my mouth with 'TALKER' written on it in magic marker, and standing in front of the room with my nose in a circle of chalk on the board. those nuns could really come up with unique punishments. | ||
7andkelly Member Username: 7andkelly Post Number: 20 Registered: 04-2008 |
I don't remember there being a lot of spanking, but surely it was a real possibility. Looking back at the class sizes, 55-60 or more, and some of the crazy antics the kids used to pull, and the fact this type of discipline was common and acceptable and expected during that time, I really believe the nuns exercised a tremendous amount of patience and restraint. All I ever got was a pointer slap on my hands. It wasn't all that hard of a hit, but I don't think I ever messed with anyone else's books again. Oh yeah, and I had to sit on the baby blanket once in first grade. I think it was for talking too loud. | ||
Jcole Member Username: Jcole Post Number: 34 Registered: 04-2005 |
I've no doubt that the nuns did have a lot of patience, and cut us a lot of slack. They must have liked kids to give up their secular lives to teach us, but they did have a real thing about talking in class. That's mostly what I got in trouble for. | ||
Kellyroad Member Username: Kellyroad Post Number: 288 Registered: 04-2007 |
All: In the 4th grade because I was talking in class, Sr. Mary John made me stand with my nose to the chalk board, shoulders pressed to the board (if I let go I would only be there longer) and she drew donkey ears over my head with chalk. As I mentioned in another posting, humiliation as a negative reinforcement wasn't the best was to exercise behavior modification or maybe I just didn't catch on....go figure,LOL It's kind of interesting to note that the main contributors to this thread are just merely communicating. It's our nature. No wonder there was talking in class. 40 years later...the song remains the same! | ||
Jcole Member Username: Jcole Post Number: 40 Registered: 04-2005 |
KR, we seem to be bouncing back and forth between the same forums, don't we? | ||
7andkelly Member Username: 7andkelly Post Number: 26 Registered: 04-2008 |
What about the mysterious tunnel? Where did it lead? Why was it there? Fallout shelter? Is it still there? Anyone ever been in it, or better yet, been in it? | ||
Kellyroad Member Username: Kellyroad Post Number: 291 Registered: 04-2007 |
jcole: Along with 7K, 7Kkid, Campfiregirl etc. etc....the times and life of that enclave in northeast Detroit during the 50s-70s seemed very special. Given the enormity of the St. Jude community at that time, the number of kids, the size of the families, the number of religious that served, the elm trees, the shops, recreation, the core values of the neighborhood, it almost seems surreal looking back. Yes, you can never go back home, but it is sure nice to discuss and remember in a forum like this. And yes "bouncing" between threads is permitted and even encouraged. Perhaps the Campfire_girl can give more insight regarding reunion info. | ||
Kellyroad Member Username: Kellyroad Post Number: 292 Registered: 04-2007 |
7K: Yes I know about the mysterious tunnel but I can't reveal any information. LOL. I believe the tunnel was accessed by the janitors room in front of the school, there were stairs from the closet that led to the tunnel that connected to the gym/church. If my memory serves me correctly the tunnel ran under the gym in back (under the stage area)..vaguely remember the entry point from the gym. I believe there was a door by the west stairs leading up to the classrooms in back (north area), the tunnel might have gone to the convent. not sure.. but the entry hatch to the bomb shelter was just east of the convent's rear entry door. The fallout shelter was the basement church. If anyone else remembers the details regarding the tunnels please post. Thanks http://www.waymarking.com/waym arks/WM11ZC |
