Our Lady of Peace barracks classroom 1947-1948; photo from OLP Parish archives

HISTORY: OUR LADY OF PEACE SCHOOL

From a document by Sister Mary Michael (Spangler) teacher grades 1-2 written 1947-1948
Principal Sister Lucille (Stewart) and teacher for grades 3-4-5
Enrollment 52; 18 girls and 34 boys

“ ‘Unless the Lord build the house: they labour in vain who build it.’ If I had been told to select a quotation suitable for the introduction to this chronicle, my choice would without hesitation have been the opening verse of Psalm 126. Since the latter part of August that sentence has had a very literal meaning for the faculty of Our Lady of Peace School.

When Sister Lucille and I were assigned to teach at 22 East Dominion Blvd, we had no idea where our mission was or how it looked. One the morning of August 22 we saw it for the first time. The outside of the school, with its stucco front and green shrubs, looked very inviting, but the inside brought us ‘down to earth’ with a bump. It was just one long room full of the debris which usually accumulates during the building process. There was absolutely nothing to verify the word ‘school’ printed above the front doors.

When the desks arrived from Saint Mary’s on August 23, ten days before the opening of school, we counted only 35 to accommodate the 55 pupils. The hard part was telling the pastor. He called several priests and different stores, but he found nothing available. With heavy hearts we returned to St. Francis Convent and told the Sisters about our plight. Sister Charlotte, as usual, encouraged us by saying that there were some old desks stored in the attic of St. Francis School. After praying and rummaging through one half inch of dirt, we found thirty small desks. Our pastor, Father Foley, contacted Father Connolly and procured them. The latter very graciously gave them to us.

Our next problem was to get the desks to the school. As the janitor was scrubbing and varnishing the halls and stairs at St. Francis, the desks could not be removed until Friday evening, August 29. Mr. Frank McCabe and Mr. Bob Goings brought them from the attic to the yard, where we turned the hose on them. The next morning Mr. McCabe rented a u-drive it truck and, with the assistance of Mr. Deffet and Mr. Loar, took the desks to Our Lady of Peace School.

In the meantime our two classrooms were literally being built. The men of the parish erected partitions in the rear half of the hall while we sanded and varnished a ‘sea’ of desks. When the first day of school, September 3, arrived, we had enough desks for the pupils and a re-varnished typewriter desk with a folding chair, a bookcase, a pedestal, and a crucifix for each of us. There were no black boards, teacher’s books, or the usual classroom decorations.

On September 3,4,5 school was in session just in the morning, but during the following week we began our regular schedule: 8:30 to 11:30 and 12:30 to 2:30. Every day we arrived in a Green Cab taxi a little after 8:00 A.M. and left about 3:30 in the car of one of the women of the parish. The trip to and from our convent lasted about one half hour.

Our school possessed no play grounds or drinking fountains, so the 52 children played ball in the street and drank as Grandpa did---out of a cup. After three weeks both of these problems were eliminated. There were no lunch tables, so the children ate from old doors and planks placed on horses and beer cases.

This lack of equipment did not affect us until the cold wave of the last week in September. Then the pupils got their first vacation because we had no heat. This lasted from September 23 until September 25. During that time a voting booth, our future cafeteria, was fastened to the rear of the school. The next four days were full of excitement. We had classes from 11:00 until 3:00 because we relied solely upon the sunshine for heat. On September 29, the blackboards, bought from Father Robbin at Marietta, were lined up in the front of our rooms. Since they were not hung up until the sixteenth of October, all the children learned to write while kneeling down. Before these arrived, they had used small slates belonging to some of the children. On the same day we began our orange crate collection; the crates have served us as book cases, as a kitchen press, and finally as May altars.

The erection of the furnace rooms, small cement houses on each side of the building, was begun on September 27. We thought that this meant the end of our ‘heat trouble,’ but it was only the beginning. The furnaces themselves were not usable until October seventeenth, so we had no school on October first. On the second of the same month, classes began at 12:00, but the rooms were so cold that the first and second grades went to the church to study. As the next day was the First Friday of the month, the third, fourth, and fifth grades were going to confession while the first and second grades were attempting to concentrate on reading, writing, and spelling.

On the seventh of October, our health nurse, Mrs. Richardson, made her first call. She informed us she would be at the school every Tuesday afternoon. Since our kitchen is the only private room in the school, she makes her examinations there.

At first our ‘kitchen’ had no furniture. We soon solved that difficulty by confiscating a voting table and two folding chairs. We cooked at Father’s house, ate our dinner in the classroom, and returned to the house to wash dishes. At the end of October we brought an electric hot plate with one burner from Saint Francis Convent. Our dishes were given to us by an old lady, who is a friend of Father’s housekeeper, Mary Dalton. Our cooking utensils, one double boiler, one skillet plus a small dish pan, one dish towel and cloth, were borrowed from Mary until we received money at Christmas from the parish ladies to buy some new ones. All these things were kept in our orange crate cupboard. On the sixteenth of October, Joe Russell, our ‘Saint Joseph,’ gave us a cupboard from the old house on the corner and file donated by the government. A week later we received a chaise lounging chair, a table, and two chairs from Father’s house. On the twenty-first a piece of red and green linoleum from the house on the corner was laid on the floor. The curtains had belonged to Mrs. Graves, one of the women of the parish. Our kitchen has quite a heterogeneous collection.

Our first P.T.A. meeting was held on the nineteenth of October. Since then we have had seven meetings, all of which have manifested an excellent spirit of cooperation from the parents. They seem to realize the handicaps of the school and try to help us in every way they can. Now they are planning to buy play ground equipment.

November third and fourth brought us important visitors. Sisters Francis Borgia and Beatrice were with us on the former day and Mother Bernardine on the latter. The two supervisors admitted that our school was a little different from others, even from the little red school house. Mother Bernardine came principally to see Father Foley, so we just had time to say ‘hello’ to her.

Sister Lucille’s feast day, the sixteenth of November, came just at the right time for our Thanksgiving dinner. The children gave her a live turkey, which walked into her room on the seventeenth. That night we returned to the convent with a large cake, a big basket of food, and the turkey. In return for such an unusual present, Father Foley gave the children a free day on the twenty first.

The children in the third, fourth and fifth grades sang Thanksgiving songs at our second P.T.A. meeting. The first and second gave a health play. The lack of a real stage bothered neither the parents nor the children.

Every Sister knows that December means plays and Christmas songs, and Our Lady of Peace School had its share of both. The big boys and girls gave a short play, The Spirit of Christmas, and the smaller children recited poems. Since this was our second attempt at dramatics, we felt extravagant enough to buy a stage curtain. The climax of the afternoon was the appearance of Santa Claus at the front door. He presented each child with a large cellophane bag containing an orange, an apple, candy, and nuts. For Father, he had a Christmas tree of money and a bath robe from the children.

On Christmas day the choir, the third, fourth, and fifth graders, sang for the first time in church. They had learned seasonal hymns to sing for our Lord’s birthday.

About two weeks before the Christmas holidays Sister Norberta first visited us as music teacher. Her original class of sixteen has now grown to twenty-one. This includes almost half the children in the school.

We were confident when school reopened on January fifth, after a two weeks vacation, that our troubles were practically over. We had forgotten that our furnaces were very temperamental. On January ninth the first grade furnace wouldn’t work at all, so school had to be closed. On the twenty first, the middle of examination week, the gas company announced that no gas could be used until a leak in their lines was discovered. That meant another free day. The worst was yet to come, for, from the twenty seventh of January until February second, we could not use our furnaces because of the shortage of gas.

During the month of February the third, fourth, and fifth grades made two educational trips. They went to the art museum and to the historical museum at Ohio State University. There was no school for the babies on those afternoons, because Sister Lucille needed a companion. On the fifth of the same month our first school movie was sent from the Ward Bakery Co. Shortly afterward Father Scannell showed us his missionary movie on the Eskimos and enrolled the children in the Holy Childhood Association.

The Lady of Peace Sunday School class was started on February first with four children in the older group and three in the younger. Later the latter group received three more children, two of whom left after one instruction. Consequently only four made their first Holy Communion. The instruction class was held between the 9:30 and 11:00 Masses.

After Christmas the choir began to learn the Requiem Mass. Its members began singing in church on the sixteenth of February. During Lent they sang the Stabat Mater for the children’s stations. They also helped with the Pange Lingua for the Forty Hours on March seventh.

During the last days of February Sisters Marie Clare and Paulina came to see our Lady of Peace, and made us a present of six net surplices for our altar boys.

When we returned after the Easter vacation (March 24-30), we opened the front door and discovered row after row of tables. It was the day of the first bingo party for Our Lady of Peace. The tables are still there because these affairs are a weekly occurrence.

We shall not forget April seventh, for our front door blew off. For some time we had had trouble with both the front doors; the locks had broken several times, and the wind easily pulled them open. Now we had to nail them shut. As a result, we could use only the side doors until Father had the locks fixed a few weeks later.

Our play ground was not large enough for both the large and small children. There was a large vacant lot behind the school, but it was a tangle of weeds. During the week of April fifth all the children helped to clear off a large enough space for a baseball diamond.

As our kitchen walls were made of old pieces of plywood, one of which read ‘Fish Pond---10 cents—Get a big one,’ Sister and I thought a little paint would improve the appearance of the room. During the last two weeks of April we spent the time after school using a paint brush. There were large seams between the pieces of wood, so we nailed slats over them before we began. When May arrived, the kitchen, although not quite finished, was much improved.

Our first inspector from the board of health came on the nineteenth of April. He apparently was satisfied with our number of facilities, but he remarked that a larger enrollment would entail more equipment.

Throughout the fall and winter months, a part-time janitor took care of the cleaning. When grass-cutting time came, Father decided to hire Joe, an old Italian. It was not long before Father saw that the work was too strenuous for him, so Bill, our full-time Negro janitor, arrived.

On the night of April twenty eighth we were told that Sister Coralita and Sister Francis Borgia would pay us a visit on the following day. We had no time for any “’supervisor worrying.’ When the day was over, we could tell that they had enjoyed themselves. I know that all of the children at Our Lady of Peace had had a pleasant time.

The first week in May was filled with preparations for First Communion. The ten second graders, one third grader, and the Sunday School Class, fifteen in all, practiced every morning. They came on Saturday, the eighth, to make their first confession. Afterwards they were enrolled in the scapular. They made their First Communion on the next day at the 8:00 Mass. The choir sang hymns all during the services. The church was so crowded that at least fifty people had no seats. Afterwards the children walked back to school to have their pictures taken.

During the first two weeks of May the department of dental health sent representatives to our school to give the second graders the new fluorine treatment. They brought their equipment in a large trailer. After one of the children returned, he said that he had actually enjoyed sitting in a dentist’s chair. He and all the others are very fortunate to have such a marvelous opportunity of caring for their teeth.

On May nineteenth, Mother Bernardine, Sister Aloyse, and Sister Rita paid us a visit. After looking at the classrooms, they went with Sister Lucille to see Father. He told them he intends to let the Sisters live in his house next fall. He will build a smaller apartment for himself. Mother thought the arrangement would be very satisfactory. At 4:30, after seeing the house and church, they left for Saint Mary’s.

At our last P.T.A. meeting, May twenty third, the third, fourth, and fifth grades gave the play, Our Lady of Fatima; the first and second grades sang songs between the scenes. The outside setting for the play was created by using artificial grass and tree limbs decorated with paper flowers. At the end of the play, Sister Lucille gave prizes for conduct, application, writing, and excellent grades to those deserving them.

On Tuesday the following week, our water supply was shut off. This difficulty was remedied in a few hours, just enough time to let us realize the value of this every-day commodity.

Sister Norberta’s music class gave a recital on May 30. Of the twenty one pupils only three were not beginners. Paradoxically, the simplicity of the program gave greater pleasure to the audience.

As the Monday of examination week was a holiday, we began our testing program on Friday, the same day that the city sent us a tractor to clear our rear lot. This program lasted until the following Thursday noon, which was marked free. On that afternoon we purchased two book cases and a pedestal for the class rooms. Mrs. Goodwin, who took us down town in her car, gave us a fire proof cabinet for our records.

The children received their report cards Friday morning, June fourth, after Mass. After dismissal at 10:00, we began our school cleaning. This task was not completed until the end of the next week. As we locked the front door for the last time, we both felt that this year had been of great value. “