Sisters of Saint Joseph – A Legacy of Education!

 From Left to Right: Sister Anna Desiderio (RIP), Bishop Ray Chappetto, Sister Letitia Lake, Sister Francis Claire Gowen (RIP) on June 30, 2012    
            

Growing up in Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish (Astoria), we were blessed to have a parochial school that had two buildings: grades 1-4 in the “old school,” built in 1891, and grades 5-8 in the “new school,” built in 1954. We had a total of 26 Sisters of Saint Joseph of Brentwood when the school was at its peak in the 1950s. The old convent on Astoria Blvd was really an old convent! The new convent consisted of the top two floors of the new school. One of my first Masses was celebrated in the new convent chapel just days after my priesthood ordination in 1971, for the sisters living there at that time! My parents joined me, and the sisters invited us to stay for dinner after the Mass.

God has blessed me with a very good memory, for which I am very grateful. I fondly remember each and every sister of Saint Joseph that I was privileged to have as a teacher. There were four classes of every grade, and every class had a sister who was asked to teach every subject. There was no departmental system while I was a student at the school (1951-1959). There were only two lay teachers, Mrs. Florence Brady (3B) and Miss Margaret Judge (Grade 5), when I attended the school, and I was blessed to have both of these remarkable and dedicated women as my teachers.

Each of the sisters was unique and special. Although they all had the similarity of their religious garb that they wore at that time. Each of them manifested a great love for their students. We developed a very close and special bond with them. They knew us very well – with all of our strong points and our weaknesses as well. I still have kept all these many years my report cards and look at them from time to time, and am flooded with memories of a religious community that was dedicated to providing a quality education. I did not realize it at that time, but years later, I discovered that many of the sisters were actually going for their bachelor’s and master’s degrees after school and on Saturdays. Educational excellence was their priority.

Most importantly, these wonderful sisters of St. Joseph formed us in our faith. Besides our parents, the sisters played a tremendously important role in developing us into young men and women who not only “knew” the faith (Catechism) but also who following their good example, lived out our faith in practice.

Recently, I was asked to celebrate the funeral Mass for Sister Francis Claire Gowen, CSJ – who taught me in the first grade! She was a gentle, kind, and loving woman who miraculously handled 60 children in the classroom without any teacher aides! What a great impression she made. We were off to a good start. At the funeral Mass, I had an opportunity to speak with my third-grade teacher, Sister Letitia Lake, CSJ. We certainly reminisced about the “good old days” at Our Lady of Mount Carmel School in Astoria, where the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Brentwood left their mark, and we are still reaping the benefits of their dedicated ministry!