Frank Stokes:
CLASS OF 1944
Sts. Peter & Paul SchoolClass of 1944
Springfield, IL
Frank's Story
The Old Dutch Pen
I had a happy childhood, successfully disguised to myself as an American boy of the ¿Thirties. I could, if required, indulge in a rollicking romp through memory and summon up the shining days of my youth. But school days are another matter. For like my friends, I considered education an unnatural imposition.
The SS. Peter and Paul's parochial school I attended [1937-1944] was originally surrounded by an eight-foot wrought-iron fence more befitting a penitentiary. Because the parish was predominantly German, locals took to calling the two-story brick structure The Old Dutch Pen. By the time I entered the first grade, the fence had long since disappeared. But the name stuck. I have never felt nostalgic about that building, long since torn down, where I was sentenced, an innocent six-year-old bystander, to a term of eight years. I graduated with twenty-four classmates in 1944, paroled at last from The Old Dutch Pen and laden with all the knowledge the Ursuline nuns could drum into our heads.
We were taught by eight sisters, all garbed in black, their faces peering out from starched white wimples which hid all traces of hair. Untypical was Sister Catherine Marie, a smiling novice teacher who in the third grade managed to spark in me a love of learning. More the imperious norm was the sixth grade¿s Sister Borgia, the irony of whose name lay hidden to me then. They all took direction from Mother Joseph, a jaded taskmistress who taught the eighth grade and served as principal. Momma Joe was fond of threatening to ¿box our heads between our ears,¿ and¿puzzled though we were¿no one dared point out that our ears were already situated there.
Misbehavior brought out the ruler, to which we learned to extend our up-turned palms willingly. Little escaped the sharp-eyed nuns. Charlie¿s tears had almost convinced Sister Borgia the cigarette butt found in the hallway was not his, but when he pulled out his handkerchief to wipe the tears, a packet of matches flew out and landed at her feet. Though he admitted nothing, he stayed after school for a month. At another time, when the janitor found obscenities scrawled in the boy¿s bathroom, Momma Joe recognized the handwriting immediately as Raymond¿s¿and summoned his mother.
Like the nuns, we too wore uniforms¿knickers and white shirts for the boys, blue dresses with white Peter Pan collars for the girls. Each year my mother stitched together three dresses for my older sister, the pattern chosen from an approved list, the tissue paper segments she had saved from the previous year adjusted for this year¿s size. My clothing had to survive the rough play at recess, where for a time ¿horses¿ were our passion. Two boys, one perched on the back of another, would clash to see who could pull opposing pairs down. As the smallest in my class, I was in demand as a rider by the bullies who urged me to do greater violence to my friends. Eventually the toll of in...Expand for more
juries forced a reluctant Momma Joe to ban the sport.
We put on plays annually. For my non-speaking part as a dog in The Pied Piper of Hamlin, my mother made me a brown costume with flapping ears and a long tail. In a Stephen Foster songfest, I played one of ¿The Old Folks,¿ with a cotton beard and a cane for the ¿rheumatizz¿ we sang of. Others performed minstrel skits in blackface, with no apology to Frank Nelson, the one colored boy in school, who at that time was never referred to as black. Though I have written poetry over the years, that classmate inspired the only lines that touch upon my days in elementary school.
Schoolyard Lessons
On the ice
Frank Watson slid
farther than most,
propelled by a running start
toward the patch
the nuns had poured
out by the schoolyard fence,
his outspread arms
his crouch
a thing of grace.
That time he slid
beyond the ice
to the asphalt at the far end,
the sudden stop pitching him
flat on his face,
two wonders I beheld
and never forgot:
although his lip split open,
he did not cry;
and though his skin was black,
his blood,
like mine,
was red.
In class the Right Answer was the end and not the beginning of knowledge. To question Authority, after all, was to traffic in the sin of Martin Luther. It was simply Wrong to split an infinitive, to begin a sentence with and, or to do some of the math steps in your head. They tolerated my left-handedness but let me know it was unorthodox. During our daily practice in The Palmer Method of Penmanship, I had to teach myself to write upside down very carefully with a dip pen, for every ink smear brought out the ruler. With no equivalent of The Discovery Channel, we were taught¿like most Americans in the Thirties¿a stereotypical view of world history, replete with noble red man, happy darkies, and heathen Chinee.
I retired in 1993 as a professor of English at Eastern Illinois University. My St. Pete's experience was not, of course, without some value. I taught for thirty-five years, guided by the clear precepts of those grade-school teachers. Whatever they did, I did the opposite. As clinical psychologists know, under some circumstances nostalgia may well be a symptom of a deep disturbance, a morbid longing for the past. I miss many aspects of the good old days, but their goodness was not universal. I never regretted denying my children an education like mine. And if it meant serving another eight-year sentence in The Old Dutch Pen, I wouldn¿t be young again even if you paid me.--Frank Stokes, 6/18/08
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