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eighth grade.
Fr McMahon took great interest in
his parish school and intended to make it
an excellent educational experience. The
academic program was excellent; its reputation
encouraged families from other sections to move
into the parish. Several innovations were
introduced over the ensuing years. School
uniforms were required so that economic class
distinctions would be less obvious and pride
in personal appearance and
encouraged. The boys in the Grammar depart-
cleanliness
ment were trained in military drill by an officer
of the National Guard and girls were trained in
calisthenics.
continued to be an integral part of the program.
Plays and musical performances
The sisters assumed control of the whole
elementary school in 1943 when the Sisters of St
Ursula withdrew. Enrollment in their nearby
boarding school could not be sustained because
the neighborhood was becoming more racially
diverse and economically depressed. ‘The pastor
accepted the terms offered by the Society: the
principal would not have to teach, staff would be
provided for eight classes of boys and eight
classes of girls and the convent made available
after 40 years of commuting from St Walburga’s
Academy. This arrangement continued through
the following decades while the economic
and cultural realities of the neighborhood
increasingly impacted on the parish school.
After 1960 for many of the 750 students
English was a second language. The faculty
worked to become proficient in Spanish and to
establish bilingual programs for the families. By
1988, in spite of further economic changes in the
area, the dynamic reputation of the academic
program attracted more than 500 children. In
that year a lay principal was appointed and sev-
eral sisters continued to live and work in the
parish until 1996.
MELROSE, MASSACHUSETTS:
ST MARY OF THE ANNUNCIATION
In 1894 this parish was established to
serve the needs of the entire Catholic population
of Melrose, a small city north of Boston, the state
60
/
capital. The first pastor, Fr Francis Glynn, built a
three-story school at 4 Myrtle Street with ten
classrooms, each with a 50-student capacity, a
library and assembly hall, and nearby on Herbert
Street a newly remodeled residence for the sis-
ters. Six SHCJ were sent to open the first and
only parochial school venture in New England.
On 14 August 1909 M M Marcella Dalton, the
superior and principal, arrived with Mothers St
Anthony and Angela, and Sisters M Xavier, St
Bernard and Joseph Anne.
The opening of the first Catholic school
in Melrose was the subject of a lengthy article in
the 27 August 1909 edition of the Melrose Free
Press. The facility was described in minute detail
and assessed to be a model building with the
“comforts of school life” that “could hardly be excelled.”
The reporter found the “teaching corps” to be
“ladies of the highest education” from whom “fine
results may be expected.”
Registration closed after three days
because the enrollment of 252 children was well
in excess of projections. Classes began on 8
September 1909 for grade one through six.
(These grades educated children from the age of
6, grade one, to 12, grade 6). Several days later
Archbishop O’Connell paid a surprise visit to the
school, one of the very few visits that he made to
the parish during the 37 years he served as
Ordinary of the archdiocese of Boston.
It was obvious from the beginning that
more classrooms and staff would be needed for
the growing Catholic population that valued the
education provided at St Mary’s. The nearby
public elementary school named for Horace
Mann, the early proponent of free public
education, closed in 1913 because so many of the
students transferred to St Mary’s. By 1927 a new
convent was built to provide adequate housing
for the teaching sisters and by the 1940’s funds
were raised by the parish to build an addition to
the school because the enrollment exceeded 600.
Enrollment continued to grow until, in the early
1960’s, it reached 790 students.
During the early 1970’s enrollment
dropped to 300 and the school was threatened
with closure due to financial problems. Funding