Ursuline Academy

May, 1989

Ursuline Academy offered me a full 4 year scholarship so I enrolled in this small school for girls in Kirkwood, Mo., a suburb of St. Louis.  The first year and a half we were picked up at our homes and driven by bus to the school. Then came Pearl Harbor Day …all school buses were immediately assigned to carrying Rosie the Riveters to their jobs making planes and ammunition for  World War II.  Our school commute became a bit difficult.

My favorite extra curricular class was Drama.   We usually had two plays each year. I remember being Joseph in a Nativity play.   This part stays in my memory because I had laryngitis the night of the play. My mother prescribed honey and lemon.  (Today I would add a shot of whiskey to that remedy.)

We played basketball, 1/2 court girl’s style.   I was a varsity guard (5’1″).    We played our sister Ursuline Academy in Southern Missouri Ozarks.  We traveled by train and stayed overnight.   Second floor dorm had a strong rope curled up by the window… a sign read “In case of fire throw rope out of window and climb down!” Other school sports during gym classes were archery and field hockey … how dangerous. Another unofficial sport was getting a freshman to walk out on the school lake to see if it was frozen solid as yet.    It generally resulted in a spectacular water rescue.   I must tell you about our school gym uniforms. The style had not been changed since the 1920’s. Honestly, they were one piece bloomers!     Each grade had a special color…green, blue, pink, yellow.  A new principal arrived our Sophomore year and shorts were allowed. Thank the Lord.   We  were allowed to advanced to the 40’s.

I was literary editor of my yearbook.  My daughter Kathy was winter yearbook editor at Palisades High School, and her daughter is currently editor at Santa Clara High School in Oxnard

My Best Friend

Lois Hillner Niehoff and I became friends near the end of our freshman year at Ursuline Academy.   She lived in Christ the King Parish in University City. We lived about a 20 minute street car ride from each other. Our Freshman year, Lois rode on a different school bus route , but after WWII started we both took the Kirkwood-Manchester street car and transferred at the Loop, to the City Limits streetcar line. So we had many chances to increase our friendship.

There was a drugstore at the Loop. People, especially we students, would stand inside to keep warm on very cold, wintry days.  The owner would angrily shout, “Everyone uses my store heat, but no one buys anything. People wanting to purchase items can hardly get through the crowd huddled at the entrance.” We thought he was so mean.

Lois had a younger sister Joannie whom we ignored;a mother, Bernadine, who sewed beautifully and even taught Lois to sew well. Many a formal dress was being hemmed five minutes before we left for a dance.   Sometimes Mrs. Hillner would actually sew Lois into the dress because the zipper wasn’t ready.

Lois’s father was office manager at Sligo Iron and Steel Co. He gave us office jobs on Saturdays and during the summer vacation. But our fun days at Sligo deserve another story.

Week-ends Lois was either at my house or I was at her house. Lois had a grandmother Anne, who lived part time with the Hillners and some of the time with her other daughter.   Grandma Anne had a picture of St. Anne (Mother of Mary) in her bedroom and taught us girls this little prayer:

Good St. Anne, find us a good man!

And St. Anne certainly did. (When I was in the Holy Land , I visited a Church dedicated to St. Anne…with that good man I had found and married. Thank you, St. Anne.  

I was living back in St. Louis the year Lois and Roy Niehoff married.  Mike was a Navy Doctor on a mine-sweeper and I had returned to live 1-1/2 years with my mother and Dad.  So I was able to give Lois a wedding shower and be a bridesmaid in her wedding.

Lois and I are still friends today.    She lives in a suburb of St. Louis, so every time I visit “Home” we pick up our friendship – as if we had never been separated by 2000 miles and 40 years.  She is godmother to my daughter Barbara and I am godmother to her son Bill.

How do you meet boys while attending an all girls High School?

Now this was a bit of a problem.  The churches had youth groups and dances.  I usually went to the dances at Lois’s Church because they were more fun.    She had attended school there and could introduce me to fellows.  The hardest thing in the 40’s was the custom that girls had to wait to be asked by a boy in order to dance. If you thought you liked a shy boy, a mutual friend was very useful.

A wonderful solution to meeting the right boys, arrived in our sophomore year in the persons of non-identical twins, Sally and Louise Vitt.   Hooray they had an older brother AND two cousins who attended an all boys school- the Jesuit taught St. Louis U. High. Every few weeks, the Vitts would have a party.  Six of us girls were usual guests and Tom would invite the boys. The party was held in their basement/recreation room. After the talking, dancing, eating and soft drinks, the fellas would leave for their homes, but we girls would go upstairs to the second floor girls’ dorm type room and spend the rest of the night talking about the boys, of course.

Summer work in High School found me falling into puppy love with Bob Forester.   He worked that same summer on the factory side of Sligo Iron and Steel Co.   How the telephone salespeople used to tease me.   My first job required me to take phoned in orders to the various factory departments.  I think they used to make up fake orders so I’d get to make several extra trips to Bob’s Department. We dated a while. I even learned to ride horses because he enjoyed it. I still have a fear of horses! Bob was called into the service in WWII, but got a leave for my graduation and the Prom. Unfortunately, Bob was badly injured in Europe, a landmine blew up beneath him.

Many  of the boys from our High School parties were injured and killed in WWII.