THE WABASH CANNONBALL

This story is not about that famous train, but rather about a person. She ran over kids much like a choo-choo, in an effort to discipline unruly urchins, like me. 02/24/2020

                                             

                                             THE WABASH CANNONBALL

Some Catholic comedians love to tell stories about their dreadful experiences in grade school. They portray nuns as strict disciplinarians who whacked kids mercilessly in order to maintain law and order in their classrooms. There is a ready audience for this brand of humor because many people recall being mistreated by a few Sisters.           

I attended two parochial schools, only four city blocks away from each other, but miles apart in the spectrum of Catholic education. Grades 2 and 3 found me in the Academy of the Sacred Heart, a tiny and somewhat elite institution while my sister attended its high school. The Bishop paid her tuition and that of seven others, but much to his dismay, none of the fifteen girls in her 1935 graduating class chose to become nuns.

     

That fall, my family transferred me from the cloistered confines of this educational sanctuary to Saints Peter and Paul, a more typical urban parochial school of the times.          

It unnerved me to go from a small private school (two classes in one room with empty desks left over) to one where each of the eight grades had a minimum of forty students.         

However, my biggest shock came upon meeting my fourth grade teacher, an imposing, severe and domineering nun, Sister Clara, better known by the school kids as Cannonball. It did not take much to intimidate me as I had just turned eight, knew none of my classmates, and had not grown an inch in two years. As the school year progressed, she instilled a dread sense of fear in me. She frequently dragged students into the cloakroom to administer harsh punishment for insignificant reasons.

One of the most frequently tortured prisoners was my best friend, William August Patrick Campbell, a giant of a boy about the same height as Sister Cannonball Clara.         

Sister Clara, a tall, angular woman of either Dutch or German extraction, possessed a florid complexion, a large nose, and the longest fingers in the world. While pacing up and down the aisles, shaking her forefinger at us, she demanded to know, "Who is it?" when trying to determine which pupil had upset the decorum of the class by laughing or whispering. The woman had radar ears. She could hear us think. When unable to identify the culprit, she round up the usual suspects and whacked them all just to be on the safe side.        

From day one, it became my policy to be obedient and quiet in her classroom. As a result, she never punished me, not even once. Therefore, my family never took to heart my stories of her treatment of the other kids in that class. When the year ended, I moved across the hall to attend grade five taught by a lovely nun who had a similar name, Sister Clare. She never hit any students.        

Late that following school year, Sisters Clare and Clara combined their grades for a music class. “Little Pickles” Conrad (to differentiate him from another kid called “Big Pickles”) stood next to me, cutting up as usual. He did not see Cannonball approach as he continued to act mischievously. She had three rulers in her hand and used them to smack him across the face.        His head snapped backwards, striking a blackboard, cracking it. Then he slumped to the floor, knocked cold, perhaps dead, I thought. When he came to, Cannonball sent him home wearing a red welt across his cheeks, evidence of her wrath. His parents took no action against Cannonball or the school. Pickles continued to attend class there and eventually graduated. The school did not repair or replace the blackboard. Money didn’t grow on school trees, not that it had any.

My graduation in 1940 coincided with the school’s 75th anniversary. In recognition, the parish issued a special publication that included class pictures. My copy had long disappeared from my possessions. While in Hoboken in early June to attend my 40th Anniversary college class reunion, my thoughts turned to this long lost booklet and prompted me to stop by the church’s rectory where a priest gave me the name of the school’s lay principal. Months after writing her to ask if the archives might hold a copy, she replied they did not. However, she sent me a handwritten list of the names and addresses of my eighth grade classmates and a copy of my transcript for grades four through eight, priceless documents that help me recall those early school days.        

In her letter, the principal wrote that three of the five nuns who taught me were still living, all retired, including Sister Clara, “who continues doing God’s work.” This news took me by complete surprise, leaving me in a state of shock and disbelief tinged with comic incredulousness.        

My transcript revealed that Sister Clara had given me a final grade of 85 in deportment, the highest mark I achieved in this category during my five years at SSPP. She had been a holy terror, but she made me behave.

Do you think Pickles ever forgave Sister Cannonball Clara?  My prayers for them include one cautionary plea: Pickles, please, do not turn the other cheek.

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Above is a picture of Sts. Peter and Paul church located at the corner of 4^th and Hudson Street whose grade school I attended. The church had two levels. The movie “On the Waterfront” includes scenes filmed in its lower level. The original school building has been demolished, replaced by a larger one located further down the block from its previous site. 
Below is a picture of my grade school diploma. The framed original adorns my office wall.

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