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Discover Today's Catholic Schools in New England - November 3-9


By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press

WORCESTER –  It was not what one considers a significant anniversary year, but it was a significant gathering for classmates of Our Lady of the Angels Elementary School who returned to campus 58 years after graduation.
The class president traveled all the way from Colombia – specifically for the reunion.
The vice president came in from Canada.
Dennis Barry, the president, said he went to Assumption Prep and Assumption College but has never attended a high school or college reunion. The reunion that brought him back from retirement in Colombia, his wife’s country, was the first reunion of his eighth-grade class from OLA.
The class of 1961 celebrated with a Mass in Our Lady of the Angels Church, memorabilia and dinner, and a tour of the school building, that opened while they were there.
“We connect to an era that was better than it is now,” a simpler existence, a time of innocence, Mr. Barry said. “We try to recreate it a little bit” by attending the reunion.
Brian Riordan, class vice president, took a break from his work as a superior court justice in Canada to come.
Some classmates shared memories of their days at Our Lady of the Angels with each other and The Catholic Free Press.
Ann Uryasz Hurley said it was a parish school, tuition-free, taught by Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.
“Msgr. (Joseph M.) Lynch was the pastor here,” said Mary Shea Kennedy. “He was very progressive; he started foreign-language class – Spanish class” – in elementary school.
“Our first three years we were in a two-room schoolhouse on the property,” she said. It was called a portable school, and housed two classes. Other classes were held in the church, in an area behind the altar, so “when there was a funeral, you took a nap” – to keep quiet.
“We were in fourth grade when the new school opened and we were on TV,” said Mrs. Hurley. “That was very exciting! Forty-four of us graduated from eighth grade. Twelve people are deceased.” Twenty attended the recent reunion.
Mrs. Hurley and classmate Father Michael J. Roy, now pastor of St. Roch Parish in Oxford, came up with the idea of a reunion when they reconnected at a baptism. Others helped them organize it.
At Mass Father Roy said it was intimidating preaching to his peers, then went on to praise them and offer food for thought.
God gave them the opportunity to “ponder where we’ve been and where we are planning on going,” he said.
Reading their brief biographies, printed in a booklet for the reunion, he found a common ingredient – generosity – exemplified in a variety of careers and volunteer services, he said. He noted the words of a classmate, “God has been good to me, and every day I give him thanks.”
“What was instilled in us as children … has been so beneficial for us,” Father Roy said. He talked about their teachers, religious sisters with faith and love of God and the Church, who were interested not only in “educating our minds,” but interested in “our souls.”
After preaching all these years he’s found only one mystery – “that we’re loved” – he said.
“Bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus,” he said, in reference to that amazing love of God. He said some people need to go back to second grade to learn that; 80 percent of Catholics under age 40 think the Eucharist is a symbol, but “we were not taught it was a symbol.”     
Later, noting that Eucharist means thanksgiving, Father Roy suggested his classmates think of one thing from their Our Lady of the Angels days that they were thankful for.
After Mass the classmates were invited to sign cards for three sisters who taught them there who are still alive and for a sick classmate who wanted to come to the reunion.
“Welcome back; welcome home,” Doreen Albert, the current principal, said as she gave them a tour.
“We had ink wells,” Mrs. Kennedy told Mrs. Albert, after they’d visited a present-day classroom with newer desks.
Recalling another memory, Mrs. Kennedy asked if they still decorate Mary’s statue, and Mrs. Albert told her about the May crowning.
Mrs. Albert said the principal’s office is still there, and invited them to take a look.
“People who spent a lot of time back there do not want to see it,” commented Father Roy.
The class gave Mrs. Albert a check for $1,100 they’d collected. Mrs. Albert said the teachers thought it would be good to use it for new water bubblers. (That way students can refill their own water bottles instead of buying bottled water in disposable plastic bottles.)


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