 
Paulmcall
Member
Username: Paulmcall
Post Number: 363
Registered: 05-2004
| | Posted on Friday, August 31, 2007 - 7:50 pm: |    |
Too bad the high school is closed. Guess they couldn't get enough enrollment.
They have tried to keep it open as a special school in the DPS system.
Anyone here go to school there?
1969 alum here. |
Rustic
Member
Username: Rustic
Post Number: 3147
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 31, 2007 - 8:07 pm: | |
I seem to recall the place ... |
Vitalis
Member
Username: Vitalis
Post Number: 1
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Friday, August 31, 2007 - 9:39 pm: | |
Greetings fellow Rustics. Anywhere you go in this world you can run into Rustics... Europe for example or the Kroger at 13Mile and Woodward (deep in the heart of Shrine Knight country!)SMR for it's time (Post WWII up to the urban disturbance of 1967) was a huge parish with 2 satellite churches with their own elementary school programs. Our parish was our world for 10 or 12 years. It's what our parents wanted (for a time) and all we knew, really. Royal Oak was as far away as, well, Dearborn (Divine Child Falcon country!). Even Northland took some doing to get to. No we had just about everything we needed up and down Grand River between Fenkell and Greenfield. Our parents stayed as long as it made sense to stay and then they pulled up stakes and moved on to Livonia or Farmington Hills. Strong Detroit brick homes with detached garages were vacated for the siding and brick ranches or colonials with "family rooms," and attached garages of the suburbs. Lifestyles changed but the city was stagnant; it looked very much the way it had for decades earlier. And of course the momentum for black families to move up and out of their earlier confines set things in a frenzy of realtor activity in the late 60's and early 70's but enough about that. This is about the good old days at SMR, with IHM nuns who were all about discipline, but not much on research skills and college prep. Lay teachers who were suppose to enjoy teaching for peanuts; or were content for one or two years (if male) to take their teaching deferments and hunker down in a classroom. Our young lives were safe, secure, and dull. The encroachment of outsiders - beginning with the first of the St. Cecilia's kids in our high school came near the end of our parish experience, these white refugees were a curious and friendly mix who reported on urban life further down Grand River,areas I only saw from the relative safety of a city bus. Things change, people move on, it's a big world, but that beautiful church still stands like a beacon, but a beacon that is heeded by few people these days. Still, I can get in a conversation with a Rustic anywhere I travel. Such was the sirens call of Catholic parish life once upon a time. |
Cambrian
Member
Username: Cambrian
Post Number: 1556
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Friday, August 31, 2007 - 9:57 pm: | |
Wow! Quite the first post Vitalis! I went there for kindergarten only 1975-6. |
Winstin_o_boogie_iii
Member
Username: Winstin_o_boogie_iii
Post Number: 84
Registered: 02-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, September 01, 2007 - 5:59 am: | |
A little dab'll do ya!! Good job, Vitalas. Welcome to the forum. My entire family attended the school all the way through and of course mass every Sunday at 6am, 7am, 8am, 9am, 1030am (high mass) or noon masses (then there was the the hippie mass in the "AP" room at the new gym).
Don't even THINK of pissin off the IHM nuns-they'd lay a whoopin on ya, then tell your folks who'd double it.
BTW-SMR Class of '77 reunion Saturday Sept 8 @ Monaghan's KofC.
I also hear there is another all class reunion sock hop at the old gym sometime soon....
Who remembers this: "Horses ass, cows titties..."? |
Kimistree
Member
Username: Kimistree
Post Number: 91
Registered: 01-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, September 01, 2007 - 8:40 am: | |
I attended SMR High School from 78 -80. |
Paulmcall
Member
Username: Paulmcall
Post Number: 364
Registered: 05-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, September 01, 2007 - 8:48 am: | |
You summed it up pretty good Vitalas.
It was amazing how many families ran their kids through the system. The McDonalds, McFarlanes,
McMillans etc.
Those IHM nuns put the fear of God into you and if they didn't coach Baz did! |
River_rat
Member
Username: River_rat
Post Number: 281
Registered: 02-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, September 01, 2007 - 9:56 am: | |
Kudos to you, Vitalis, for the superb and heartfelt first post. Although I was in the parish and knew so many of the kids who attended SMR in the 50's, I was a Crary/Cooley kid. Attended many weddings of friends at the church in the 60's. The area was as you describe, an area insulated from urban crime and if yu were a 10 year old boy, your curfew was when the streetlights went on.
There was no need to roam from the neighborhood as everything was within walking distance of the church and school. Dooley's Bar, the Gariepy (sp?) Clinic, the A&P at Grand River and Fenkell, on and on. It was before air conditioning and the Norwest theater was a great respite from the summer heat on Saturday at th 15 cent matinees. No one really thought to lock the doors because what would happen if you didn't? All the windows were wide open all summer.
The world really changes, doesn't it? I still run into Rustics on my travels; recently on a ship off Istanbul I heard someone say "pop" for a soft drink. Upon conversation, we were old neighbors along Fenkell in SMR territory. We had great memories of the pleasant past.
Sic transit gloria. |
Oldestuff
Member
Username: Oldestuff
Post Number: 39
Registered: 01-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, September 01, 2007 - 10:20 am: | |
yeah, but you had a stinky gymnasium. Holy Redeemer's was better and so were the Lions! |
Iheartthed
Member
Username: Iheartthed
Post Number: 1523
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, September 01, 2007 - 1:28 pm: | |
I had a few friends go there for middle school when Holy Cross closed down in the 90s. |
Quozl
Member
Username: Quozl
Post Number: 1368
Registered: 07-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, September 01, 2007 - 10:42 pm: | |
Present and accounted for. Went to SMR for a few months after I got expelled from Benedictine. As luck would have it, I managed to get expelled from there too and went to Cooley for a while.
Mom & Dad and many of my relatives attended SMR from grade 1 thru 12.
You spelled Dr. Gariepy's name correctly River_rat. He was my Grandfather's brother-in-law. My Uncle Jim also practiced medicine there from 1958 until 1974.
|
Gannon
Member
Username: Gannon
Post Number: 10420
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 4:36 pm: | |
My cousins, the Aldridges, were there...Sam graduated in '80, Danny in '81 (same year as me from St. Alphonsus).
Also, my sister married into the Legel family.
Carolyn got married a year ago July 3rd, and we caught up with a good number of St. Mary's alumni...big, big fun. |
Kimistree
Member
Username: Kimistree
Post Number: 101
Registered: 01-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 31, 2007 - 9:19 am: | |
Hey Gannon, I graduated with Sam Aldridge. I haven't talked to him since we had our class reunion in 2000. I hope we have another one in 2010. |
Kennyd
Member
Username: Kennyd
Post Number: 16
Registered: 04-2008
| | Posted on Friday, June 06, 2008 - 1:15 am: | |
quote:Joseph W. Guyton Elementary was named for the first American killed in action on German held soil
Oops - This post belonged in another thread -
(Message edited by kennyd on June 06, 2008) |
Moc
Member
Username: Moc
Post Number: 2
Registered: 10-2008
| | Posted on Friday, October 31, 2008 - 1:19 pm: | |
There is a separate forum for SMR on the homepage. |