St. Thomas Aquinas Church
Binghamton, NY
June 30, 2006
Photo by Lynn Franklin
Memories of Saint Thomas Aquinas Church and School by Bob Sweeney |
Saint Thomas Aquinas Church and School are located on the West Side of Binghamton, NY, just off Highland Avenue. In the late 1950s when I, and several of my brothers and sisters, attended the school, it ran up through ninth grade. Our family also belonged to the parish and attended Mass on Sunday mornings in the old stone church just across the street. Our classes were taught by nuns who lived in a convent behind the church itself. The rectory, where the priests lived, was on the west side of the street running from the school up to Highland Avenue. When I came there for sixth grade in 1956, the school and parish were still fairly young.
Most of the nuns were Irish, including the stern Mother Edwards who came to run things in 1957. The school, in those days at least, had all subjects taught by the same nun. In sixth grade, we had Sister Mary Oswald, an elderly frail nun whom the more imaginative boys rumored to have received Extreme Unction on more than one occasion. "Ozzie", as we called her, maintained a close guard on our morals by insisting that, during the lunch hour, the record player repeatedly churn out "The Dodo Bird in the Bellyun Tree". She was not amused when, one day while she was not looking, someone substituted "You Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog" for the "The Dodo Bird". For seventh grade the following year, our teacher was the angelic Sister Mary Seraphia. For eighth and ninth grades in 1958-1960, our fate was to be in the company of Mother Edwards all day long. A grim matron with an Irish brogue, Mother had an austere approach to teaching and a very limited sense of humor. Many hours were spent after school writing 1000 times "I will not talk during math" or equivalent repetitious homilies. Mother was known to swing a mean left open palm, and to box ears as well. On any of the interminable holy days and other feasts and occasions, we were trooped in our uniforms [green plaid skirts and white blouses for girls, white shirts and ties for boys] to the church. There, in the days before air conditioning, we might stand, sit or kneel for hours, punctuated by hymns to be sung in Latin or long rambling sermons by the good Father Hannon. No one could ever recall a short sermon by Father Hannon, and God forbid that any child in the pews should either fall asleep or stumble over the words to words or tune to Pange Lingua! Ironically, the school gym was downstairs in the church, and it was there that we played basketball. In 1958-9. we even had green uniforms for the eighth grade team and several of the girls were green-clad cheerleaders.
Recess was held on the playground that stood exactly where the new church is located today. Games of ringaleevia, kickball and whiffleball were interspersed with periodic fisticuffs or brawls, or baiting and teasing of the girls. Just to the north of the playground stood the ominous house of an older woman we nicknamed "The Biddy". The Biddy, as best we could tell, hated children and complained constantly to the rectory about the noise we made, the balls we kicked or threw over her fence, and, most grievously, the snowballs that rained down on her house in the winter time. I recall a lecture to our class from Mother Edwards, quoting from a letter to Father Hannon from The Biddy in which the good reputation of Catholic youth was called into question. We were bluntly instructed to avoid her premises, but I can report that for years thereafter unknown parties decorated her trees with toilet paper every Halloween.
In ninth grade, we studied Latin, algebra and the normal routine of history, English and religion. In those days, when you studied "English", you actually had to be able to read and you spent a lot of time learning about grammar. Can you parse the gerunds in a complex sentence?! There was also a big influence on such topics as penmanship and spelling, a competency in which, for whatever reason, I had and still have a knack akin to someone else's perfect music pitch. I was not only the school's best speller, but I won the Southern Tier spelling championship that year and represented St. Thomas Aquinas in the State Spelling Bee in Syracuse. In those days, being a good student would get you teased by jealous compatriots, but there was also a recognition of, and appreciation for, academic excellence. It came as a great disappontment to Mother Edwards, however, when my parents chose to send me to Binghamton Central High School in 1961, instead of to the Catholic alternative, Seton High School in Endicott. This was in the years before Catholic High School in Binghamton was built. If you lived in Binghamton, your choices for high school were either Binghamton Central or Binghamton North High School, fierce rivals, or Seton, if you were a Catholic and could get there. Kids in the other local communities could also go to Johnson City High School ["JC"], Union-Endicott High School ["UE"] or Vestal High School. Maine-Endwell High School was not yet in existence and places like Chenango Forks or Owego might as well have been in another state! Here is a portrait of my graduating ninth grade class at St. Thomas in 1960:
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