I open this reminiscence on a sad note. I recently found out that
Ron Sipowich has passed away. Ron was a Latin teacher at Saint Ignatius from 1968 to 1974. He
was a good guy…funny, enthusiastic and inspiring. Those who were around in
those days will recall that, for Open House, he and a group of his students
would build gigantic structures related to the Roman times. One year, in the
hallway on the second floor, they constructed a galleon made up of chicken wire
and tissue paper. Another year, he supervised the construction of a catapult
that took up about half of a classroom.
Please keep Ron and his family
in your prayers.
Since I’m
retired, I don’t get to school very often these days, but when I do, I
thoroughly enjoy visiting with …some might refer to it as “pestering”…the
teachers who are around. I suspect that it’s an occupational hazard of getting
old that everything reminds me of something from my past. I’m OK with that;
there is some comfort in rooting through the attic of my memory, and recalling
events and the changes that have occurred since I was a young teacher and
coach.
One such
reminiscence occurred recently as I walked past the windows that look out over
the small yard which lies between the school building and Holy Family Church.
Back in 1961, when I started, that yard was the parking lot for the lay
teachers. In ’61, there were only 15 laymen, and not all of them drove to
school. The rooms on the ground floor adjacent to that yard, now the
art classrooms, were where lunches were served and the students ate. Because of
the paintings of ships that hung in that room, it was called the “Marine
Room”.
In the early ‘60’s, Fr. Koch, the president of Ignatius
at the time, had a Quonset hut built in the afore-mentioned yard so that
the boys would have more room to eat. Since its floor was
slightly lower than the floor of the Marine Room, it was named the Sub-marine
Room. (If you remember the “Submarine Room”, you might want to make sure that
your retirement paperwork is in order.) That room continued to serve its
purpose until the “new” gym was completed in the fall of ‘67, with the “Commons”
which has served as the lunch room ever since, although now it’s called Tully
Hall.
Once the Commons was built, the Quonset hut was converted to a
theater, and finally a storage area for construction equipment. Eventually it was torn down and made into a garden. Father Rowe expressed the wish
that it would be used by the students to study and/or visit in a comfortable and
serene setting. To this day, this area remains a beautiful part of the campus, nestled
within the confines of the school grounds. It’s formal name is “The Daniel
F. and Ada L Rice Garden.”
As I muse
about the changes that have occurred to the land around Ignatius since ’61, I’m
inclined to write about so many other changes that have occurred. If you
haven’t been back since the ‘80’s, it might be a worthwhile visit.
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