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Nuns: Two Thumbs Up
Film critic Roger Ebert wrote a great piece on attending Catholic grade school. In Mary we crown thee with blossoms today (Chicago Sun-Times, August 4, 2010) Ebert recounts his experiences at Saint Mary’s Grade School in Champaign, Illinois, including stories about the Dominican nuns who taught him.
We [were] taught by Dominican nuns who knew their subjects cold, gave us their full-time attention, were gifted teachers and commanded order and respect in the classroom. For eight years we were drilled on reading, writing, arithmetic, and religion. Periods were devoted to history, geography and science, taught from textbooks without visual aids or any other facilities. We learned how to write well, spell, and god knows we learned how to diagram a sentence. And we looped away at the Palmer Handwriting Method, neatly writing JMJ at the top of every page, for Jesus, Mary and Joseph, who would bless our lessons, but not always.
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The school building had a basement for Sister Ambrosetta’s first grade room, the cafeteria and the gymnasium. The gym was just slightly larger than a basketball court, and had two or three rows of seats across one of the short ends. Pads under the baskets protected us from crashing into the walls. Our coach was the tomboy Sister Marie Donald, who tucked up the hems of her habit and dribbled and shot better than any of us. She taught second and third grades on the second floor, and it was there we had what passed for school band practice. She passed around triangles, tambourines, ratcheted sticks, maracas and wooden blocks, and we formed a rhythm section to pound, scrape, ding and rattle along with music on 78 rpm records. Fifth and sixth grades were taught by Sister Nathan, a fresh-faced favorite who usually seemed amused by us. We took this as a sign of favor.
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Sister Rosanne, an immensely kind woman, very smart about current events, taught seventh and eighth grades. Sister Nathan, a great favorite with the students, taught third and fourth, and then moved right along with us to fifth and sixth. I can’t account for second grade; in my memory, Sister Ambrosetta only taught first, but maybe we were all so young we seemed the same to one another. The school was supervised by Sister Gilberta. To be sent to the principal’s office was a special damnation. We feared her, because we feared the feeling of guilt. None of these nuns were “strict” in the sense usually meant. They simply assumed we would behaved, and for the most part we did. No sister ever laid a hand on any student as far as I know. Nor did they raise their voices. It was an orderly school. We regarded the nuns with a species of awe, because they were the brides of Christ and had the entire Roman, Catholic and Apostolic Church backing them up.
Read the full article, and some of the comments too! One of Ebert’s classmates who is pictured in one of the photos even comments!
Use the comment box below to offer your thoughts on Ebert’s piece. We’d love to hear from you. Let’s get the conversation going! 
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{ 7 comments }
I attended public schools so enjoy hearing about parochial school life. Roger Ebert’s article about St. Mary’s Grade School is wonderful!
I never tired of listening to my mom talk about St. Mary’s Academy in Windsor, Ontario, where she was a boarder. Mom was taught by the Sisters of The Holy Names Of Jesus And Mary. The first time we watched “The Trouble With Angels”, mom told me stories of her life at St. Mary’s. I absolutely loved hearing about mom smoking in the girls bathrooms, short-sheeting the nuns beds (yikes!), sneaking out of the school to meet friends, having detention on weekends, and kitchen duty which always included washing the pots! I was 10 or 11 when she first told me these stories and I think that was the first time I really looked at my mom in a new way, almost as an adult to adult, realizing she had not been the perfect child as one tends to think of their parents. I’m still a bit surprized (and well, impressed!) about mom’s involvement in the short-sheeting incident. This involved a convoluted path down hallways off-bounds to students and up several flights of stairs to the dormatories where the nun’s slept. A look-out had to be posted in two spots including on a stairwell landing with several large windows.
When St. Mary’s was imploded in 1977, both mom and I were upset. The building was beautiful, gothic in design and built around the same time as our Motherhouse.
Thanks for sharing this Sister Julie!
How cool to be able to share that experience with your mom, Suze!
Candy, thanks for writing in too. I think I too fall into that category of being too shy to have caused any trouble!
What a hoot!
I loved both Roger Eberts and Suze’s stories, they reminded me of my school days at Catholic school. I was too shy to cause any trouble though! I am very glad to have gone to these schools and would not change it for the world, me and my daughter watch Trouble with Angels every other day! She loves to hear stories from my school days and I only regret that the schools I attended no longer exist. Grateful for the memories though.
i was once too shy to cause trouble, but all of that changed in ninth grade
catholic school was a haven for me. i loved it, especially k-8th grade. high school was less fun because—there were only two nuns by then! someone a few years older than i, the daughter of my kindergarten teacher, published a book called thank you, sister about going to my grade school with the wonderful bvms. it was one of the first books i bought for my kindle and, while not great literature, it still takes me to great places when i read pieces of it.
i missed a writers’ guild meeting in my town recently and a friend was telling me about a new member. she talked in great detail about the new woman’s story about the nuns at olph, my school. the best thing? i guessed who the new member was just from the description of the story! i hadn’t seen her in years, but i remembered the story of the first dance lessons at my grade school and how jealous her older sister was that she was such a good dancer! catholic school is more like family.
ebert’s piece has brought a smile to my face.
Marla a trouble maker??
Very cool about the writerly connection. Have you since run into her?
I loved my nuns in grade school. None in high school although I did get to know the Basilians, a religious community of men. In college, I lived at a Catholic dorm run by the Sisters of Saint Joseph and then lots of nuns at grad school in theology. I have had many good nun years now that I think about it!
I envy you all those nun years! especially college and grad school.