School Days: Eighth Grade Graduation - 1961

Even though Christine was sent home from the hospital today, she's still not quite up to posting yet so it's up to me to fill in.

So here's the last photos of my St. Rita's class of 1961 in cap and gown, looking serious.

[From my personal collection]

My photo is the second to last one.



© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

School Days: Eighth Grade - 1960/61

Here we are in our last year together,* some of us having been classmates beginning in kindergarten and I'm in "Facebook" contact with at least four of them.

[From my personal collection]

*I'm the fourth from the left in the top row. (My seventh grade class photo is missing.)


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

School Days: Sixth Grade - 1958/59

Other than being another year older than in our last school photo, the biggest visual change for me was getting my hair cut.* Quite a few of us had first met in kindergarten and here we were seven years later.

[From my personal collection]

*Second row, third from the left.



© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

School Days: Fifth Grade - 1957/58

Another year of Catholic grade school students--I'm on the bottom row, left, with only two of my classmates separating me from the nun (our principal, whose name was possibly Sister Mara?). Mrs. Hopkins was our teacher.

[From my personal collection]

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

School Days: Fourth Grade - 1956/57

This week I'm sharing the class picture from my fourth grade at St. Rita's School.* (I'm in the second row, fifth from the left.)

[From my personal collection]

*Sadly, the third grade picture is missing from my collection.

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

School Days: Second Grade - 1954/55

Another year, more school portraits of me and my classmates. (Mine is located in the third row, second from the right, on the first page.)*

Here's what St. Rita's School looked like at that time and you can see a current view here, courtesy of Google Maps. (The second story was added while I during my time there.)

[All from my personal collection]

Googling St. Rita's I found a very brief history of the school and learned it had been open only a year before I began my education there.

And, as Mother lightly penciled in, I was seven years old.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

School Days: First Grade - 1953/54

Here's my first grade class at St. Rita's, many of whom were in kindergarten with me the previous year. This was the first year we wore uniforms and had a nun for a teacher.

[From my personal collection]

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

School Days: Kindergarten - 1952/53

Here I am at the start of my educational career at St. Rita's School--and I also have class pictures of my schoolmates.

I spent the next nine years (through 8th grade) with most of these children.*

[From my personal collection]

 Kindergarteners were the only kids who didn't have to wear the school uniform.


It turns out I have a number of these class pictures. Check back later!



*And almost all of them are in the picture of my First Communion I shared here recently.



© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

School Days: My First Communion - 1955

There we all were, the second grade posed on the front steps of St. Rita's School. (As Mother's note states, just barely visible at the bottom, I was eight years old.)

[From my personal collection]

Because I was always among the short kids, I was positioned in the front row, fourth from the right.

I attended St. Rita's for nine years, K-8, as did most of the other children. I'm currently Facebook friends with several of the girls and someone (from a different grammar school) who I went to high school with married one of the boys.

Sister M. Dominica was generally considered to be "mean" although I don't remember her that way.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.