Looking Over the Convent Wall

The Annals of the Sisters of Notre Dame- Lowell  , MA

December 1, 1879           

About this time was purchased a lot of land from a certain John Hennessy for $4,000, and the buildings having been moved in the Spring of 1880, and the ground cleared, a brick wall was built on Adams street extending 123 ft in length.

This is the first mention of the brick wall that surrounded the school, academy, convent, chapel and grounds of the Sisters.  One of the next entries in the Annals tells that the Sisters had to sell off their cows and poultry and to close the gardens which grew some of their food.  The Rule of the SNDs was changing.  The Sisters who once freely mixed with parishioners and often visited homes as nurses were now to be semi-cloistered.  The wall was extended along the Suffolk Street side as well and the vegetable gardens were transformed into formal gardens.  The greatest section of the wall was brick with a granite capstone.  Looking at the eastern wall of St Patrick Church a large outline of a doorway exists today.  Though many recall it as a way to get from the school to the church, originally it was where the Sisters would sit to observe the Mass.  The Order mandated that the Sisters were no longer to assist at Mass sitting with the congregation and to remain within the cloister.  The Sister who wrote the annals during this period put in that this was a sad time for both the Sisters and parishioners.  The inclusion of such personal feelings was highly unusual and shows the close ties the two groups must have enjoyed.   The convent wall was a source of intrigue for many neighborhood children who would devise means on finding their way in and mention is made of neighbors hearing the nuns chanting the Divine Office or the Tantum Ergo on Sunday afternoons.  Even William Cardinal O’Connell mentions that he would make his way over to the Acre and scale the wall with his friends to see the Sisters walking in the flower gardens and grotto.

When the old school was demolished and the new school built in 1958 most of the wall was taken down with it.  The Sisters moved to the Academy grounds at Tyngsboro and made the daily trek by car.  The wall no longer served its purpose.  A small section remained in front of the current school along with several granite capstones strewn along the fence near the housing.  By the 1980s the wall was becoming a hazard.  Bricks were falling out.  The mortar was deteriorating making the wall a potential hazard.  I was there the day they took it down, pleading that maybe a small section could be retained.  As the workmen left I stole a single brick, the only relic to tell the story.  If walls could speak……..

Samhain, Halloween, and other things

Thanks to Thomas Cahill's book, How the Irish Saved Civilization, we're all aware how our ancestors were personally responsible from keeping the Western Hemisphere from spinning back into the primordial abyss.  Well that isn't exactly what he says, but that's my take on it.  I am always aghast when those who share our Celtic heritage are unaware of the Irish roots of Halloween.  The Irish brought Halloween to the Americas.  The Celtic calendar ends at this time of year.  The season was a celebration of harvest and a time to prepare for bringing things in- closure.  And so it also became a time for the dead.  Large bonfires would be lit and animals and humans alike would walk by them as a type of cleansing.  The spirits of ancestors would be recalled with food being placed out for them.  Of course when the Church stepped in, the old went out.  Sort of.  All Saints Day and All Souls Day were to replace the old ways, even though they never completely disappeared.

Image from Google

I attended Saint Patrick School under the instruction of the good Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.  Now it's become the fad for former Catholic school students to gather and tell horror stories of the torture chambers that the schools kept in their basements.  One friend claims his nuns performed lobotomies on students who refused to wear their uniforms to school.  Another claims one of his nuns packed heat.  They are apocryphal stories at best.  You will never hear such stories from me since I hold those women in the highest regards.

When I was in first grade my nun was Sister Julie Barbarian (a false name was used to protect the guilty).  Our classroom was in the school basement since Sister had 52 students, no exaggeration.  There was no aid in the class or break for an art or music teacher to come in.  She was stuck with us, which may have lead to the encounter I tell.  It was Halloween.  Being good Catholic boys and girls we were told to dress as our patron saint and be ready to parade around the school.  As I was ready with my sister to walk the 1.5 miles to school (today that would be child abuse).  I informed my mother I needed to dress as Saint David.  "When?" she asked.  "Now!" I replied, "Today is Halloween."  My mother took a copy of the Lowell Sun and folded it into a bizarre lump and informed me it was a crown.  I was going as King David.  I'm grateful she did not give me a loincloth and sling shot and go as young David fighting Goliath.

When I got to school there was St Francis, Saint Anthony, Saint Ann....  It looked like the hosts of heaven descended on Adams Street wearing their fathers' robes and mothers' bedsheets.  Sister looked ecstatic as we walked in.  She pointed at the folded Lowell Sun sitting on my head.  "What's that?"  she asked with her black habit looking much like a witch's outfit.  "It's a crown.  I'm King David."  I thought she would comment on how creative my crown was.  Instead she gave some sort of theology lesson that David was not a saint since the Messiah had not yet arrived and how could I be a saint if the gates of heaven had not been opened yet..............  My eyes glazed over as she went on quoting scripture, I think.  Her last words were, "Take it off."  I was crushed, until the kid after me walked by, we'll call him the sacrificial lamb.  He had on a Woolworth's skeleton costume compete with plastic mask.  You could see her take a deep breath.  "I'm a skeleton," came the muffled voice from behind the mask.  I've heard that certain sounds can break glass, and that the blasts of trumpets felled Jericho's walls.  The sound that came out of Sister's mouth was akin to that.  Her final words were, "Take it off."  "I can't," said the skeleton mask.  "You can't or you won't?" asked the good Sister, now looking more like a witch.  "I don't have anything underneath here," retorted the skeleton.  While the rest of the class paraded around the school ,Skeleton Boy and King David stayed in the classroom eating candy corn. 

Sister Julie is now counted among the saints.  The whereabouts of Skeleton Boy remains unknown.