Nuns From the Old School Say Amen to Reunion Celebration

The 40 Holy Cross nuns who live at St. Catherine’s By the Sea are praying for a successful homecoming.

The former school offered Ventura County youth a parochial education for more than four decades. Now, the sisters living there have invited hundreds of former students to return to the six-acre campus, which was transformed 32 years ago into a retirement home for the women who dedicated their lives to serving God.

Sister Laurencita Maloney, 89, is one of several retired nuns living at St. Catherine’s who taught at the school before it was closed in 1968. That same year, the order of the Holy Cross Nuns opened a 40-bed retirement home at the site, located at the intersection of Poli and Santa Cruz streets.

Maloney said she appreciates the efforts of former Academy of St. Catherine’s students Pat Bullough and Joyce Cantrell, who have spent more than a year tracking down hundreds of other former students using only a few clues left from school archives.

“We had very little archives left after the school closed,” Cantrell said. “Most of the records were sent to St. Mary’s, the nun’s mother home, in Notre Dame, Ind., [and] put in the basement never to be seen again.”

Using only the maiden names of those who attended St. Catherine’s all-girls high school, the Ventura women found it difficult to locate former students.

For 18 months the two women telephoned, e-mailed, advertised in local newspapers and made announcements in parish bulletins. Eventually they sent out 437 announcements and have received 260 ticket reservations, not counting the nuns and priests who will also attend the diamond jubilee celebration on Sept. 2.

An 11 a.m. Mass will be celebrated as part of the program. Officiating will be the Rev. Thomas J. Curry, bishop for the Santa Barbara region, Msgr. Patrick J. O’Brien of the San Buenaventura Mission and the Rev. William Olivas, chaplain for St Catherine’s. A luncheon in the garden will follow.

Former congressman Robert J. Lagomarsino will be the program’s master of ceremonies. He is a graduate of St. Catherine Elementary School and nephew of the late John Lagomarsino, one of the school’s founders.

Maloney calls Olivas “little Willie” and remembers teaching him many years ago. She also remembers Lagomarsino as “young Bobby.”

When she speaks of her former students, including Bullough and Cantrell, her eyes light up and glisten with tears.

Bullough said Maloney’s faith and sense of humor helped teach her students more than just academics. “She prepared us for life.”

During a tour of the garden, Maloney points out where the former school once stood. There remains a pepper tree where pupils and teachers once gathered to eat lunch. And still standing is a flag pole where each morning students pledged their love of God and country.

Nearby there is a small white statue of the Virgin Mary surrounded by garden foliage.

“That is where I still go to pray for all of the children of St. Catherine’s,” said Maloney, who began her working life as a nun teaching at the school.

From 1931 to 1942, Maloney taught first and second grades and high school business classes. At one point she even conducted Spanish classes.

“I didn’t speak Spanish,” Maloney admitted. “Some of the students coming back might want their money back.”

After that, she became a hospital administrator in Ohio and Maryland. She has also been the director of St. Catherine’s, which was named for a 14th century Dominican nun and author from Italy who started having mystical experiences when she was 6 years old. Catherine was given credit for persuading the pope to return to Rome in 1377 after he had moved to Avignon, France.

Maloney now wears a modified habit. But, when she first began teaching 69 years ago, the other nuns wore full habits. Uniforms were not required at St. Catherine’s.

Pupils came from the surrounding community and their parents paid $10 per month for their instruction, which included religious studies and daily worship. By comparison, a Catholic grade school at the nearby Buenaventura Mission cost $1 per month at the time.

“No one was ever turned away because they couldn’t afford it, thanks to school founder and supporter Edith Hoffman, who would always come up with the money somehow,” Maloney said. “We suspect she would reach into her own pocketbook.”

A painting of Hoffman hangs in the music room of St. Catherine’s. Hoffman, a Ventura philanthropist who raised champion race horses, converted to Catholicism before her death in May 1970.

The first of St. Catherine’s classes were held in the Lincoln Drive garage of John Lagomarsino in 1925. By 1927, the school had its own building and coed classes from kindergarten through eighth grade. An all-girls high school opened in 1935.

At St. Catherine’s, students learned math, science, social studies, English and foreign languages. High school students prepared for college and business vocations.

The current director of St. Catherine’s is Sister Patricia Ann Thompson, who was one of Maloney’s religion students many years ago in a separate Ojai parish.

“She was one of the church’s first altar girls. When the altar boys would come everything would already be set out for the priests, because she had already done it,” Maloney said.

Referring to her former student as “her boss,” Maloney said she remembers how Thompson, now 74, thoroughly studied her catechisms. She also recalls how Bullough and Cantrell’s families donated eggs and other produce to the school to help it through hard times.

But Maloney worries that at the anniversary program she won’t recognize each of her former students, for whom she has prayed diligently.

“They will have name tags with maiden names,” Bullough assured her.