DATE: Friday, October 3, 1997 TAG: 9710010184 SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL TYPE: COVER STORY SOURCE: BY PHYLLIS SPEIDELL, STAFF WRITER LENGTH: 179 lines
A time of innocence - that is how the class of 1947 best remembers its days at St. Joseph's Academy, the Portsmouth parochial high school that later became Portsmouth Catholic High.
Tony Penello and his wife, Dot, both 1947 graduates, hosted the first night of the class' 50-year reunion last weekend. A large, lighted 1947 shone through the trees around their Churchland home like a beacon to many of the alumni who scattered after graduation and had not seen each other in 50 years.
Memories of a sheltered life within a bustling war-era Portsmouth floated from scrapbooks of fading photos as many the class' 37 graduates gathered to reminisce.
May Day processions with the student body walking through downtown Portsmouth from St. Joseph's on King and Dinwiddie streets to St. Paul's Church. The senior boys were in their best suits and the senior girls, wearing white dresses and veils, carried bouquets of fresh flowers. Bertha Buchanan Russo, voted the prettiest senior girl, was the May Queen in 1947.
``The processions, in honor of Mary, the Blessed Mother, were always on Mother's Day and we stopped traffic every year,'' remembers Marie Morlino, now a Churchland resident. ``Crowds of friends, families and curiosity seekers would line the streets to watch us go by.''
Junior/Senior Proms held at the Petite Ballroom, then located on the corner of High and Crawford streets, featured formal dress, an orchestra and a traditional grand march that ended in the dancers forming a circle around a statue of Mary, the Blessed Mother, and singing the ``Ave Maria.''
``Before the prom the nuns put all the ones who didn't have a date for the prom into one classroom and would not let them out until they had paired up,'' Shirley Kilpatrick Shannon said. Shannon, who was born and raised in Portsmouth, traveled from her home in Georgetown, Texas, for the reunion.
Sissy Ullom Kapinos showed her grandchildren her high school scrapbook and laughed at their reactions.
``They could not believe that we had the Blessed Mother at our prom,'' she said.
Graduation exercises, with all the traditional cap and gown regalia, were combined with a special mass and held in St. Paul's Church.
Nuns from the Sisters of Charity, in traditional blue habits, staffed St. Joseph's and remain forever in the memories of their students.
``We were taught by these little ladies with big wings - those big white hats - who would not hesitate to rap you with a ruler when you needed it,'' Bob Patskoski said. Patskoski, senior class president, now lives in Merritt Island, Fla., where he is a cameraman at the Kennedy Space Center.
Most of the class lived in the Newtown, Parkview, West Parkview or Cradock sections of Portsmouth, and a few commuted from Norfolk. Like several other 1947 grads, Patskoski was brought to Portsmouth by World War II when his father, a Navy officer, was stationed in the city. James Brennan, now a college professor in Massachusetts, came to Portsmouth from Crawfordsville, Ind., when his parents joined the burgeoning work force at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. James Butt's family, including all seven children, moved to Portsmouth from New Mexico for the same reason.
World War II impacted daily life for everyone and left its mark on the class' memories.
Blackout shades, ration books, gasoline shortages and underwear held up by cotton drawstrings because elastic
was scarce were everyday realities for the class of '47. Four of their classmates were serving in the military even before graduation.
Tony Penello was in a junior chemistry class when an explosion at the nearby shipyard rocked the school and rattled the windows. Bombs being moved from storage at the nearby shipyard had exploded and killed several workers there.
Morlino remembers watching her father, a civil defense warden, don his hard hat to make his nightly neighborhood patrols.
Brennan was fascinated by the smoke machines that were towed through downtown streets to send up a giant smoke screen.
``We were in the middle of a giant white fog, like a daytime blackout,'' he said.
Peggy Hozier Pruitt, now from Wilmington, Del., remembers going to dances at the local U.S.O.
Like kids in any era, the crowd from St. Joseph's loved to have a good time and were adept at creating their own fun in spite of the war.
Bill Jonak, class valedictorian, arrived at the reunion sporting a St. Joseph's School honor pupil button, its blue ribbon faded to a dusty tan. His fondest memories, however, were not of academics but of the escapades of the ``Unholy Four'' as he, Penello and two other classmates were nicknamed.
``After school I would play pool at Bland's Billiards on High Street and hope my mother didn't find out,'' Jonak said. ``On a big Friday night we would get into a '43 Plymouth and drive around, making noise, waving at girls and wishing we had dates.''
James Butt, now from Hurt, Va., remembers savoring many a hot dog from a stand near the Portsmouth ferry stop before heading to a movie on Granby Street in Norfolk.
``Then we would go down East Main Street and look through the windows at all the tattooing going on, but we never got one,'' he said.
Boys and girls basketball were the only sports offered at St. Joseph's. Although the teams practiced outside and played their games in borrowed gyms, both teams were well-supported.
``In a school the size of St. Joseph's, everyone got involved with the team,'' said Kilpatrick, all-star forward on the girls team.
For athletes like Charles Cunningham who lived in Newtown and wanted to play more sports, it was the city league football and baseball teams that honed their athletic skills.
The 9 o'clock gun at the shipyard signaled curfew for many Portsmouth youngsters.
``We could walk around town feeling perfectly safe although most of us had to be home by 9 p.m.,'' Morlino said. ``When that that gun went off, we flew home.''
Cars were scarce and gasoline was rationed.
``Anyone with a car in the class was in high cotton,'' Penello said.
``There wasn't much crime here then, and we all walked or rode our bikes everywhere,'' said Cunningham, a retired locomotive engineer who still lives in Portsmouth.
Brennan was one of the lucky ones with a set of wheels, although his were on a Cushman motor scooter. ``The fastest scooter in the Norfolk/Portsmouth area,'' he was still bragging at the reunion.
Polio was still a health threat.
Morlino, with several of her friends from the class, volunteered after school at DePaul Hospital's polio rehabilitation center. After riding a street car and the ferry, the girls would arrive back in Portsmouth at 8:30 p.m. and walk home.
``Sailors clogged the streets - there were so many of them - but we felt perfectly safe because they were perfect gentleman,'' Morlino said.
Like one big family is how Kapinos remembers her class.
``There was a closeness there with the Italians, the Irish, the families from all over the city, and they all knew each other,'' she said.
Although the name St. Joseph's Academy was dropped in 1949 when the school was merged into the St. Paul's parochial schools, later to become Portsmouth Catholic schools, the academy lives on in the hearts of its alumni. ILLUSTRATION: Color cover photo by JIM WALKER
Tony and Dot Penello decorated their house with the class year for
the St. Joseph's Academy reunion.
Bertha Buchanan, left, was May Queen and Marie Morlino was her
attendant. Girls wore white dresses for May Day.
Thirty-three students in St. Joseph's class of '47 made it into the
yearbook.
Faith and Jim Butt of Hurt, Va., chat with Tony Penello, right, host
of the first night of a 50-year reunion weekend for St. Joseph's
Academy's class of 1947.
Graphic
CLASS OF 1947
Louis Alexander
Bertha Buchanan Russo
James Butt
Charles Cunningham
Jean Dodson Klecka
Mary Falzon Wesson
Stephen Fazekas (deceased)
Louis Ferri
Virginia Festa Miller (deceased)
Jacqueline Griswold
Thomas Hipple
Helen Hall Cover
Peggy Hozier Pruitt
Nora Kane (deceased)
Shirley Kilpatrick Shannon
Frank Koziol
William J. Jonak Jr.
Josephine Manzo Esposito
Annie Manzo Olinek
Joan Marciano
Kathleen McDonnell
Marie Morlino
Robert O'Donnell
Robert J. Patskoski
Anthony Penello
William Perrot
Eva Radam Frey
Lucy Rano (deceased)
John Riley
Joseph P. Russo
Elizabeth Schwalemberg Botsco
Dorothy Simpson Penello
Arthur E. Stewart
Edward R. Ullom
Josephine Ullom Kapinos
Sr. Mary Paula Zemienieuski
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