Being a Catholic high school graduate wasn’t high on the list of things top of mind when I moved to Manitoba in 2007. That’s mainly because my high school days were some 30 years behind me – or at least so I thought at the time.
Turns out, however, Sister Andrea Dumont, the longest-serving religious in Thompson, is originally from St. Catharines, Ontario and a member of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Toronto, who – wait for it – just happen to be the same sisters who taught some of my classes from September 1971 to June 1976 when Sister Conrad Lauber was principal and Sister Dorothy Schweitzer taught me several English classes – and Grade 10 general math at Oshawa Catholic High School (previously known as St. Joseph’s High School and later Monsignor Paul Dwyer Catholic High School.) Sister Dorothy also taught high school in Toronto, Vancouver and Edmonton, as well as Oshawa.
Trying to teach me high school math must have given real meaning to terms like “long suffering” and “patience of a saint.” As I recall, there were two mathematics “streams” back then: “advanced” and “general.” Since these were in the days before there was much articulation of the concept of “bullying,” many of your classmates had no reservation about saying that “general” math was for “dummies” or “dunces.” Self-esteem aside, I’d have been hard-pressed to argue the point, especially since I struggled with math no matter what the label: algebra, geometry, functions and relations – shoot me now, just remembering the words, much less the symbols and equations. If I had known how many percentages I would have to convert as a journalist, I might have paid more attention to high school math, but perhaps not.
It was only after meeting up with Sister Andrea, who spent 14 years in Guatemala and since returning to Canada has lived in Grand Rapids, Easterville and Thompson, where the main focus of her work is in adult education, which includes training lay presiders for times when there is no priest available, organizing and instructing in the various ministries, sacramental preparation and RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults), when I became a parishioner at St. Lawrence Catholic Church here, that I realized Sister Dorothy and Sister Conrad, more than three decades on, are still alive and active – and that Sister Andrea knows them and often sees them on visits home to Southern Ontario.
Sister Conrad Lauber, ministry director for Fontbonne Ministries’ Village Mosaic in Etobicoke, described as an “unsung hero,” was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee medal in June 2012. Village Mosaic’s focus is always, Sister Conrad says, “about relationship building, bringing participants together to form community.”
I remember Sister Conrad, then my principal, sitting in her office my last year of high school, as she showed me her debating awards, after I had once again been defending some decidedly non-Catholic propositions in inter-high school debating tournaments. She got it. She understood the intellectual exercise. But unlike me at the time, she also understood more was at stake. She didn’t ask me to stop debating, but only if I could perhaps tone down some of my rhetoric a bit when representing the school in public at debates.
I had a wonderful e-mail reply from Sister Dorothy several years ago, where she said in part: “You write very well (this is your former English teacher speaking!) and astutely. And thank you for your kind words – it’s comforting to know, so many years later, that my efforts were not all in vain!”
A wonderful flash, indeed, of Sister Dorothy’s characteristic good humour, not to mention perhaps a diplomatic or discreet indirect reference to Grade 10 general math class.
For any of you reading this who may have grown up in the Durham Region of Southern Ontario, just east of Toronto, or still live there, and are interested especially in Catholic post-secondary education in the 1960s or 1970s, Ken Bodnar’s blog called My OCHS at http://myochs.blogspot.ca/ is the first and last word on our high school days and years. Ken has it all: history, both official and unofficial, trivia, the arcane, milestones, biographical sketches and old photos from his own archive of old negatives, yearbooks and other sources. Ken is the unofficial archivist for all things relating to St. Joseph’s High School, Oshawa Catholic High School, or Monsignor Paul Dwyer Catholic High School, as students now call its hallowed halls. You can contact Ken by e-mail at: ochsblogger@rocketmail.com
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