My mother did not believe in a god for the whole of her life, so I got no religious training from her. My father never spoke of religion in his 88 years, but I know for a fact he believed in a god because he used to raise his fist to the ceiling and curse him on a regular basis.
Even my grandmothers never spoke of a god so my exposure to the topic was quite limited in childhood, which I believe leaves me more free to have an objective perspective, but that’s not the point of this story. One rare exception to my godless life was the year that I spent in Catholic school.
“Oh, good grief,” my mother complained, while filling out the Catholic school’s registration forms. She sat at the kitchen table with a whole booklet of pages to complete.
St. James was the only school in town that would let me enter first grade a year earlier than the public schools and I guess Mom was in a hurry to get me out of the house. She was resentful that she had to take directions from a religious institution, however, because she considered herself a proactive atheist, proudly sharing her point of view at every opportunity, except for this time. So, she begrudgingly filled out the forms at the kitchen table on the night before the first day of school, complaining about all the information required.
I, on the other hand, was elated with anticipation and couldn’t wait for my first day of first grade to begin.
“They want to know your major field of study, Kay.” my mom called out to me sarcastically, as I sat on the floor beneath the kitchen table, inhaling the wonderful aroma of my brand new plastic, turquoise school satchel, loading it up with the tools that they said I would need on my new adventure, a big thick pencil, wooden ruler, metal scissors and a jar of paste all my own. The most important thing, of course, was the pad writing paper. It had more lines than kindergarten paper. Red lines, dotted lines and even imaginary lines. It was big kid time now. I was on my way.
“So, which major do you choose, Kay?” my mother continued to prod jokingly, not really expecting an answer from me.
I hopped up excitedly and looked at the list. There were several items to choose from. I couldn’t read a word and didn’t know the sound of one letter, but I noticed one of the words looked much longer than all the other words.
“It must be the most important thing in the world to learn,” I thought to myself, so I pointed at the word and asked her what it said.
“Arithmetic.” Mom said.
“I’ll do that one.” I said, and Mom laughed.
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For the most part, I adored and respected Sister Mary Rose Roberts and remember to this day her most thorough and excellent teaching in phonics. I’ve been an almost flawless speller for all of my life on account of her. But there were other things she taught us, religious rituals, that my mother opposed and resisted, using me as her instrument, to which Sister Mary responded with some cruelty.
The first thing Sister Mary Rose did to aggravate my mother was teach us the recitation of the rosary. Even though I hadn’t learned the prayers yet, I loved the ritual itself, the pattern, the three little prayers in a row, followed by one long prayer … pretty little beads to spin around in your fingers as you counted and kept track of your prayers …
To welcome me to this ritual, Sister Mary gave me a pretty pink rosary with sparkly beads and I was beside myself with joy when I took it out of my satchel on the drive home from school to show my mother.
“Where did you get THAT?” my mother cried out in shock as her arms jerked sharply at the wheel and the car swerved.
The very next morning I woke to find my precious new gift was missing. I remembered distinctly that I had put that rosary right on the table beside my bed when I went to sleep, but it was nowhere to be found the next morning. I crawled around everywhere, looking under beds and dressers, searching closets floors and trash receptacles, crying and asking my mother for help, and wondering why no one ever came.
I never found the rosary again, and for some reason it was never replaced. It’s funny it never occurred to me to ask my mother about that in later years. Time flies by so quickly. I wonder if she would have admitted what she had done, if she did it. I will never know for sure now. I don’t even know at what age I was when it dawned on me what probably happened to my pretty pink rosary.
The next conflict between my mother and Sister Mary Rose Roberts cropped up when I brought home my assignment for memorizing the Lord’s Prayer.
“You don’t have to memorize the Lord’s Prayer!” Mom barked, and I was greatly relieved as I put the paper aside . It would have been a difficult thing to do since I could not yet read. So I happily forgot about the assignment, until the day came for the recitation of the prayer.
As each student stood up, one by one, to recite the prayer to perfection, I felt a lump growing in my throat so big I could scarcely breathe by the time it came to be my turn. My mother had been mistaken. I really was supposed to learn the prayer and there I was, my turn rapidly approaching and I did not know one single word.
When Sister Mary called on me, I got up and stood beside my desk and began to mumble gibberish, on purpose, hoping she would show me mercy and pretend to hear the right words I was supposed to be saying and spare me the humiliation of public shaming. But she offered no forgiveness, which is a bit ironic.
“That’s enough, Miss Taylor! Now sit down!” she snapped, her voice cracking like a sharp whip, and I sunk into my chair humiliated.
I might not remember the order of certain events, but I can remember the very first day of school, when my greatest of expectations was dashed upon the rocks within the first hour.
The room was filled with noisy chatter, as excitement grew for the coming bell, the bell that would let us out for our first recess. I talked with the little boy who sat beside me and we made plans together about what we would do once they let us out those doors. I was certain that I’d found my best friend forever as we made our plans.
My expectations were instantly shattered when, just before the bell rang, the nuns separated the girls from the boys, lining us up against opposite walls, and I stared at my new friend across the room, in sadness and dismay, as he went out the door to the big field and we girls went out to play on the other side of the building, where there was only a tiny strip of grass to play and a bit of sidewalk, beneath the metal stairway that lead up to the nun’s living quarters, with barely enough room for a jump rope, and trees too tiny and weak to be climbed (seen in photo above).
I never did get to go out and explore that field. In fact, I don’t recall ever seeing the front of the building until I searched for it this year, 2021, (64 years later). When I saw the picture I was surprised to see the beautiful facade on the front of the school building, thinking it was a new addition and then realizing that I’d actually never seen the front of the building before.
And then I snapped to the realization that we females were never allowed to enter or exit from the front side of the school building, as the boys were. We came and went through the back. In fact, I’m ashamed to admit, I’ve only just realized that what I’d always thought of as the front of the school building, was actually the back.
And I also suddenly flashed to a more pleasant memory. One glorious dark evening when we girls and our families were allowed to attend a festival right there on its grounds, dressed in glittery angel wings and sticky halos for All Saint’s Day (aka Halloween). All the little girls were asked to dress like angels because we were told that dressing as demons made us evil. I remember distinctly how special it was to be allowed on the field that single night.
I was excluded from morning mass at my mother’s insistence, and against my own objection because I wanted go to mass and take catechism. I loved the little books my friends got in catechism class, filled with colorful pictures of heavenly bodies.
I especially wanted to join the church when I learned the little girls got to wear a white veil on graduation day and I begged my mother to let me.
Once I saw Mother Superior walking down the halls in her flowing white dress, I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up: a woman who dressed in all white. When my mother explained to me that there was no way around it and if I wanted to be a Mother Superior I was going to have to be a nun that wore a heavy black cape on her head for a few years first, I was persuaded to change my career goal in life to that of a nurse, because they could wear white, from head to toe, throughout their careers. Actually, in the fifties, they were required to wear white, from head to toe, including their stockings.
I had no interest in wearing the hot, heavy, sweaty thing that Sister Mary had to wear. The hat alone must have weighed twenty pounds, and the stiff white underlining that framed her face, beneath the heavy black drapery, cut into her cheeks and chin, chafing her pale skin as she spoke. She could barely turn her head to see from side to side, much less behind herself, she was so compromised.
Mother Superior, on the other hand, looked as if she were bathed in light and floating in a cloud, but it was not a career I would be pursuing after all.
It happened that once, and only once, my mother drove me to school too early, just as Sister Mary was leading our class through the parking lot and across the street to the church for morning mass. Mom had to put on her brakes in the middle of the parking lot as they all walked by, right in front of our car.
I could not help but notice the angry looks my mother and my teacher exchanged, and it was clear to me, even at that young age, that they did not like each other. So, my mother and I sat in the car, waiting uncomfortably as the class walked by, and, once they crossed, we backed up and drove away as my mother muttered things under her breath.
So, while they were in mass, we went to the grocery store to kill time and by the time Mom dropped me off and I wandered into the first grade door, I was surprised to see that class had begun and, even worse, my teacher was half-sitting, half-leaning on my desktop, teaching to the class from this location.
Not knowing what else to do, I walked slowly down the aisle to my desk and then stood beside Sister Mary, waiting silently, as she continued to talk for a while and ignore me.
Finally, she stopped talking, looked down at me and inquired, “What do YOU want, Miss Taylor?”
I mumbled and stuttered something about “my desk” but trailed off as I saw her eyebrows lift the stiff white crown of her nun’s habit in surprise.
“YOU’RE desk!” Sister Mary said to me indignantly. “Why this isn’t YOU’RE desk anymore. It’s MY desk now. I’ll show you where YOUR desk is.” And she marched me over to the far side of the room, making me put my nose against the wall and keep it there until lunch time, where I stood and sobbed with snot running out of my face, feeling pity for all of my friends who had to watch my slobbery and disgusting display.
I suppose Sister Mary’s dislike of me had to do with her interactions with my mother, because the rest of the nuns, thankfully, showed me a much kinder side. One day, no one came to pick me up from school, so the nuns took me up above the school, to the second floor where they all roomed together.
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We went into a tiny chapel room first, where we knelt down and prayed. Then they sat me on the couch, surrounding me with hugs and affection and coconut cookies with bright red cherry centers.
I sat on the couch, stuffing my face with coconut cookies, while the nuns cooed and fawned over me, telling me that I was going to live with them from now on, and being a six year old, I believed them.
In fact, I loved the idea. I could do without the dark, boring prayer room, but it was worth it for the chewy cookies, and the affection. I was in seventh heaven, with all these women cuddling me, when suddenly there was a knock at the door, a crack of light, and then the angry face of my mother staring in at me.
“What are you doing here?” I cried out in surprise, from the middle of the heavenly bodies now holding me.
“I’ve come to take you home now. It’s time to go.” my mother said between gritted teeth and with clenched jaw.
“But, I, I, I, I’m going to live here now.” I stuttered hesitantly, not wanting to hurt her, but trying to stand my ground. Something had gone wrong. The nuns had forgotten to inform my mother.
I don’t recall what was said by my mother, only that I knew, by the way it was said, that it was time to go home, and I sadly descended the stairs from heaven, returning to my earthbound destiny.
Oikos 