By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press
WEBSTER – Fond memories surfaced Sunday as alumni, families and teachers studied memorabilia and chose keepsakes at the St. Anne school building, which is up for sale.
At Mass that morning, Father Adam Reid, pastor of Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, which owns the school building at 12 Day St., invited parishioners to stop in for a last walk down memory lane. An earlier parish bulletin announcement had also extended the invitation.
“Perhaps you went to school down there,” Father Reid told the congregation, adding that historical items and the contents of the 125th anniversary time capsule (from the 2009-2010 school year) were on display, and mementos were being given away.
St. Anne Elementary, Sacred Heart’s parish school, was initially staffed by the Sisters of St. Anne. Several years ago it combined with nearby St. Louis Elementary to form All Saints Academy.
Up through the 2019-2020 academic year, both campuses were used. This fall, classes and offices that were at St. Anne were moved to the Negus Street Campus, said Nancy Kudzal, parish administrative assistant. She said the school continues to use Sacred Heart’s Sports and Activities Center at 11 Day St., which the parish will keep.
Some potential buyers have expressed interest in the St. Anne’s school building property, she said.
Lori Manyak, a Sacred Heart parishioner, said she’d been helping the last two months with finding homes for the school’s furniture. People could come and take what they wanted and leave a donation, she said.
“There was not a person who came who had a bad experience here,” she said. “They were in tears that this place was closing.”
Linda Oakley said her grandmother attended St. Anne’s classes in the old hall, where the sports center now stands, her mother went to the school and she herself was a student there. Later, she and a classmate became teachers there.
“I was here in this building 15 years,” said Mrs. Oakley, who now teaches at All Saints Academy.
Her daughter, Elizabeth Oakley, who attended St. Anne’s, perused the free glasses and mugs, looking for one from her class – 2002.
“This piano – my grandmother probably played on it,” said her mother. “The Sisters would give piano lessons.”
“I had Sister Constance as a teacher … when I went to Holy Name Grammar School” in Worcester, said Francine Erickson. (Sister Constance Bayeur, one of the Sisters of St. Anne, was later St. Anne’s principal – for several decades.)
“I came here kindergarten through grade 8 and then my kids came here,” said her son Mark Erickson, visiting with his children Lexus and Brayden. “It was cool because we had the same teachers.” He said he saw those teachers again when, as a parent, he volunteered for recess duty.
He has “great memories” of St. Anne’s he said, adding, “Just a nice family environment – everybody knew everybody.” It was good for his children to be there in their early years; it gave them more structure, he said.
“It was a strict environment; it wasn’t too strict,” he said.
Now his children attend public schools, he said, explaining, “We moved to Dudley and they have a good school system there.”
Steven Avery, Class of 1979, said his family attended St. Anne’s “all nine years – kindergarten through eighth grade.” He and his sisters went there, as did their father and grandfather, and his sons.
“Sister Constance came when I was in third grade,” he said. And she was there throughout his sons’ years there. Devon graduated in 2009, Derek in 2013.
Devon had a special memory: the eighth-grade science fair, where he won honorable mention.
“My love of science – that’s when it really started,” he said.
His father shared a fond memory: “Playing basketball – because I wanted to coach.” He did so in the 1980s, but not when his sons attended St. Anne’s, he said.
“I just wanted to be a parent,” he explained, and recalled “Halloween parties, class trips … as a parent.”
Karen Betty also remembered class trips to Canada and Washington, D.C. – as a parent.
“I remember the kids loved it,” she said.
She said two of her children played basketball in the present gym when it opened: “My oldest played his last year; my youngest played her first year.”
She had another happy memory too: “I liked International Day. … All the kids picked a country … and they had to dress the part.”
She herself attended nearby St. Joseph Elementary, she said. When she and her husband, Jean-Paul Betty, had children, “I wanted them in a Catholic school, and he preferred this one,” she said. She didn’t care which school.
Mr. Betty said he and his six sisters, and their mother and grandmother attended St. Anne’s. And since their grandson went to kindergarten there, the family can boast of five generations at the school.
“When I came to school here the priests used to come” and greet students at recess, Mr. Betty recalled. He also remembered a neighbor volunteering as a recess monitor on the boys’ side of the school.
“All these pictures bring back a lot of memories, because I volunteered a lot here; my husband did too,” said Mary LeBlanc, attending Sunday’s open house. She said their daughter and her children attended the school.
Gretchen Pelletier said her husband and two of her seven children went there.
She said the children “met up with a girl at the tennis courts,” learned about the school and said they wanted to go there. They did, and prospered. That was while she was teaching there, she said.
“Initially I came here as an aide to the Title I” teacher, she said. “Then I went back to get my college certification” at Assumption College, then returned to St. Anne’s and became Title I math teacher.