Good girls grown up

They came of age in the “good ol’ days,” when there was no war, no drugs at school – an era when most American families were headed by a dad with a stay-at-home mom who seemed to revel in domestic bliss.

Life appeared to be simple back in 1955, the year 92 women graduated from Marycliff Catholic High School in Spokane. The rules were clear-cut, as dictated by the Marycliff Code of Ethics:

“I will show my loyalty to God by attendance at Mass on all Sundays and Holydays. …

“I will be loyal to the United States realizing that a good Catholic must necessarily be a good citizen of her country obeying her authority. …

“I will respect and obey our Holy Father, the pope, my bishop and my pastor as well as my parents. …

“I will observe purity … I will be modest in my dress, pure in my speech, becoming in my manner of acting, and never an occasion of sin to others.”

“We were unsophisticated, innocent and trusting,” Mary Lee Gaston told her classmates Saturday during the 50th reunion of the Class of 1955. “If we were oppressed, we didn’t even know it.”

About 70 women from that class gathered in a banquet room at north Spokane’s Fairwinds Retirement Center to remember their years at Marycliff, an all-girls Catholic school that closed in 1979. While many shared fond memories of their alma mater as they pored over old photographs and yellowed copies of the Marycliff News, they also marveled at the drastic changes in the past 50 years – in society, in the Catholic Church, in themselves.

As she recalled their previous gatherings over the years, Gaston reminded them of those times that they, as women of the church, shared a meal together, in the same way that Jesus and his disciples broke bread during the Last Supper.

“We didn’t even know it, but we had become the church that Jesus really intended for us to be … ,” she said. “We were always remembering him as we celebrated, laughed and cried and continued to live our lives, with dignity, courage and strength.”

These women – now in their late 60s and early 70s – have gone through many struggles, said class member Barbara Greer. Some have survived cancer or the loss of a child. Many are widowed after decades of marriage. Their friendship over the years, they said, has been a source of sustenance.

On Saturday, the women greeted one another with hugs before sitting down with glasses of wine at tables adorned with vintage linens and antique doilies that Greer had collected over the years. Each woman wore a handmade corsage made of silk roses and ribbon.

While as many as 46 have showed up during past reunions, this is the first time that so many have come, said Ginger Maher Edmonds, who was able to track down all but two of her classmates. Eight women from the 1955 class have died, but they were remembered during the prayers Saturday.

“It’s amazing that we’re still here and we’re still friends,” said Mary Bridget Shay, who gets together about three times a month with several of her Marycliff classmates at the Old Country Buffet. “We girls are still having a great time.”

The elegant old school on Spokane’s lower South Hill opened in 1929 thanks to Raphaelita Gordon, a prominent figure in the social and civil affairs of Spokane at the time. Gordon donated her land and home to Spokane Bishop Charles White for the creation of a Catholic high school for girls. The first graduating class consisted of 46 women who received their diplomas in 1933.

Girls who attended Marycliff tended to come from working-class families who couldn’t afford the tuition at Holy Names Academy. Tuition at Marycliff, which was about $50 a year in 1955, was subsidized by contributions from the parishes of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane. After 50 years, Bishop Lawrence Welsh closed the school in 1979, citing declining enrollment.

The women of the Class of 1955 grew up in a time when Catholic women were expected to simply pray and obey, according to some of the graduates. It was a completely different era: Men worked, and women stayed home to have babies. You saved your virginity for your husband. Divorce was a sin, just like birth control.

The girls came to class every day wearing blue jumpers with starched white blouses. Makeup and jewelry were never allowed. If the bishop was visiting, they wore nylons instead of anklets. All the classes were taught by the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, except theology, which was reserved for the priests. On Fridays, the girls ate no meat, and they fasted during all 40 days of Lent.

Those who disobeyed the rules were forced to clean the classrooms, said Beverly Petrone Nestor, who was once caught smoking behind the school.

Along with the rest of society at the time of their graduation, the Catholic Church was dominated by men who made up all the rules, according to some of the women. Before the reforms of the Vatican II in the early 1960s, women – particularly the laity – didn’t have much of a voice.

“We all had to be the same,” recalled Sister Nina Shephard, who joined the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration during her senior year. “We were told what to do, even how to think.”

“We were silenced by mortal sin,” said Gaston, recalling how they were told to never wear tight sweaters because it would be their fault if their clothing enticed men. “They milked the Book of Revelations and scared the doo-doo out of you.”

Holding up the blue Marycliff Handbook along with a popular 1950s book called “The Wife Desired,” Gaston told the women Saturday: “If we prayed very hard and were very submissive and cooked good meals, then our husbands would be happy.”

Their education, while beneficial in many ways, just didn’t prepare them for the turmoil of the real world, Gaston said. A decade after their graduation, when most of the women were already married with children, “all the rules had changed,” she said.

“The Vietnam War began,” she told her classmates. “If we weren’t pregnant with our first, second or third babies, we probably experienced our first protest marches and our first acts of civil disobedience.”

Gaston, along with other women from the Class of 1955, became more active after the reforms of Vatican II. Shephard said sisters like herself also were able to be more involved in pastoral ministry. “There was suddenly this recognition that everyone has a voice in the church, that we are all people of God.”

Despite the challenges some of them faced as young women, members of the Class of 1955 say they’re grateful for their experience at Marycliff. Some miss those days when the rules were more straightforward and young people seemed more respectful and disciplined. A few said they wished they could still have Mass in Latin.

Regardless of their differences, many said they were just thrilled to see old friends, talk about their years at Marycliff and relive their youth.

“Everything I do now is because of everything I was taught at Marycliff,” said Nestor. “I had a wonderful time.”