Friday, July 15, 2016

Mom, I’m Staying after School for…

Memories like birds, fleeting--one must grasp and hold with heart's hands.

In looking at the Patrins of 1941, the first yearbook of Notre Dame Academy, it is striking that all the seniors were listed as belonging to certain organizations.  Some memory searching on blogger’s part surfaced the popularity of prayer associations “back in those days”.  Some of the these will sound familiar to our senior alums (like blogger): Miraculous Medal Assoc.;  League of the Sacred Heart; Co-Missionary Apostolate.  Other things these graduates were involved in were obviously more active: Student Government; N.D. Band; Publicity Committee; Mission Committee;  Co-Writing Project; Little Flower Club; Gavel.  Seniors performed service to the student body by serving on one of these Squads: Assembly, Patrol, Cafeteria, Usher, First Aid, and Recreation.  Other designations were a bit more mysterious: Marian Brigade and Twice Daily Club.  If any reader knows about these, please let us know.

Another interesting feature of the 1941 Patrins was the collage photos of the grads’ baby photos, a feature in the Tapestries of recent years.  These are two samples from 1941 year book, suggesting that they were taken around 1923.
















By the way, and for the record, a patrin is a marker, maybe a handful of leaves or grass, left by Gypsies, to guide those following after them (this definition could not be verified aside from the year book note since it seems to be obsolete).  That seems a fitting name for a school’s year book (or annual as we used to call them).  As you may know, the year book was discontinued in 1955 (lack of enthusiastic workers) and not revived again until 1974 with the name Tapestry, also a fitting name.  With regard to the clubs at NDA  today, there are 35 with an additional 13 activities that students can get involved in.  Life should not be boring around here!