100 Years and Still Going Strong

This past Saturday, i went with my wife Liz to the one hundreth anniversary of the school she went to from kindergarten to 8th grade in Chicago. It is Our Lady of Grace, a Catholic school, located a couple blocks from where she was living at the time.

One hundred years is a long time and it is my opinion that Catholic schools offer one of the best educations around. They would have to as parents have to spend money above and beyond what their taxes pay for in public schools.

Our Lady of Grace was built the same time as the tragic Our Lady of Angels and was of the same design. Liz was in school that day and survivors of OLA attended her school until a new school could be built.

When Liz attended, most students were Polish, but there were some Italians and Irish as well. We sat at a table with several members of the Mullins family. Today, most students are Hispanic as the neighborhood has changed. Sadly, classes during the 50s and 60s when Liz attended, usually had 40+ students and there were four or more of them, but the whole Class of 2009 had just 12. This does not bode well for the school's survival.

Liz even remembered exactly where all her classrooms were and we got photos of all but one. According to Liz, they looked amazingly the same as when she attended.

There sure was a lot of history in that building. Liz's Class of 1965 had one of the biggest turnouts of all, with about 12 grads.

I graduated 8th grade from Winston Park Junior High School in Palatine, Illinois, in 1965. That building probably was built in the early 60s.

A Real Piece of History. --RoadDog