Josephine Altamirano:
CLASS OF 1969
Saint Peter SchoolClass of 1969
San francisco, CA
Notre Dame High SchoolClass of 1973
San francisco, CA
Josephine's Story
Hi everyone. This is basically directed to my grammar school classmates, as I do have the opportunity to see my high school mates annually.
It says to 'share your story' here. I'd prefer to share 'our story' of things I recall about our lives and time together at St. Peter's. There's a lot, and I will provide updates on those whom I have kept in some contact.
First, I will share the following about myself (just to get it out of the way): I am a breast cancer survivor -2004 (and so are both of my sisters. And my brother had a liver transplant. Go figure.) I also survived a bout with the swine-flu complicated with bi-lateral pneuomonia at the same time in 7/2009. Had a cool near-death experience with that one with a little glimpse of communications on the 'other side'. Gotta share that story someday. I'm divorced (39 yrs) with 2 great kids. Erich 43 and Michelle 39. I am a retired Business Tech PM, VP, have a small house in Petaluma, (love that town), but currently am primary care giver to mom so I spend most of my time in SF. She is now 103 yrs old and looks like she'll be sliding on to 104 on Oct. 1st. [Update: she made it to 105 years but past away literally during the earthquake on Oct. 5, 2019, at 9:42 am]. Uploaded a pic with our family out in front of her house. That's 3 generations. 12 out of the 32 pictured on the steps attended St. Peter's. (Makes for a good 'find Waldo' game). Dad made it to 99 yrs., so you would think we (siblings and I) would have had better genes. Must've been the asbestos we played with in the basement all those years...using it like it was chalk. We'd rip off a chunk from the chimney and draw a hop-scotch pattern on the ground. Anyways, ...how can we forget anyone we spent 8hrs a day, 5 days a week, 9 mos. out of a year, 8 yrs of our life with (oops, dangling preposition, sorry Mr. Morabito. He, by the way, runs 2 pre-schools in Oakland. He and his wife just celebrated 50 years together, wow!…in 2019). Ok, so I made a list of Classmates from 1st through 8th grade, although some were only with us for a year or two and sorry if I misspelled a name. Let me know if I missed anyone:
Sebastian Aguilara
Margaret Alcala
Josephine Altamirano
Henry Areas
John Azofeifa
Mark Baur
David Brazzoni
Brenda Broussard
Dale Broussard
David Broussard
Jessie Bustos
Salvador Bustos
Ann Cabig
Marta Cabralles
Christella Castro
Ronald Cutino
Paul Caloca
Rosemarie Calvillo
Silvia Carrillo
Peggy Chiarez
Cesar Cortez
Juanita Davis
Cathy Delahoussaye
Debra Delgado
Rosemary Delgado
Anthony Dissalvo
Maria Diaz
Michael Evans
Eric Estrada ?
JoAnn Fauss
James Fitzpatrick (or Kirkpatrick)
Shirley Ford
Ninoska Franco
Keith Gale
Leticia Galvan
Theresa Gomez
Dolores Gonzales
Joe Gonzalez? (Black glasses, sang 'Wherever
my heart leads me' in
our 6th grade class)
Catherine Garcia
Bonnie Gullivan
Mary Ann Grey
Cherrie Hurlbert
Helen Hand
Donna May Hendricks
Laura Hernandez
Rodger Hernandez
Zelma Hildago
Maria Ibarra
Rita Juarez
Sandra Luna
Cynthia Lau
Donald McDonald
William MacKirby
Arthur Madden
Gerald Martinez
Ana Marroquin
William McKinley
Timothy Mcquire
Mercedes Morales
Christine Pasqual
Cuatemoc (Tony) Perez
Sharon Phillipe
Doris Quadra
Peter Rodriguez
Danny Ruelas
Benjamin Reyes (or was it Ruiz? My apologies if I got it wrong)
Tom Ryan
Carlos Salazar
Lorraine Santana
Juan Sarmiento
Rosemary Shroyer
John Shroyer
Elizabeth Sloan
Robert Solis
Dominic Tallerico
Gustavo Torres
Stella Valencia
Ana Villagran
Nancy Velarde
Joe Velasquez
Yvonne Vasquez
Cecilia Vidal
Ellis Wallace
Timothy Weiss
Debra Williams
Anidia Zabales
Can't recall the last names of the following:
Anabell (Lopez, maybe?)
Herman (2nd grade only)
Ana Marie
Everesto (use to flip up his upper eyelids)
Rosio
That's a total of 90. In 5th grade half our class switched home rooms so those who remained in the other homeroom would not be listed here. Maybe someone can begin that list.
Teachers:
1st grd- Sr Mary Socorro. (Short and petite) Gave stern looks if you interrupted the school principle's, (Sr Mary Claude) speech.
2nd - Sr Patricia Marie. Could hit a bulls eye (or Arthur Madden) with her chalk or eraser while spinning around quickly if she heard anyone talking)
3rd - Sr Mary Sharon (Thuffering thuccatash)
4th - Sr Mary Boniface. Would throw you some candy if you could recite your times tables.
5th - Miss Bartolio. Dark hair, sunglasses, wore sunglasses and her bandana a la Katherine Hepburn and drove that cool little '59 turquoise and white Nash Metropolitan...(I say the original Mini Cooper)
6th- Sr Mary Edwin (RIP 2015) uploaded pic. Use to read and sing to us all the time; read us the story "The Good Bad Boy", which I bought a copy of during a sale at the library..still have it.
7th - Mr Morabito (would pretend to shoot you down if you didn't know the answer and make the whole room shake at the same time)
8th - Sr Angela Marie: "...is all you have to do is.." when teaching algebra.
We started to switch classes in 7th grade so we also shared the following teachers with 7th and 8th graders, too:
7th - Sr. Maria DelRay, had a nice deep and loud voice
7th - Mr. Whalen (squinty ‘Clint Eastwood’ type eyes.
8th - Sr. Mary Victor (or was it Victor Marie?) reddish-brown hair peeking out from under the Sisters of Mercy short veil.
8th - Sr. Joanne Marie, great posture, always humming some nice tune
I could draw everybody's picture that's how ingrained you all are in my memory. Yes I still draw, working with oils now. I also dabble in music, playing piano, violin, ukulele. guitar, banjo (not my fault, it was an old one and so cool looking) and the violin was a mistake. I thought I was enrolled in a guitar class but everyone's guitar was so small .😜 Clarinet, recorder, and almost anything you can blow into😝. Gotta love those wood winds. And I'm sure I can play a marimba, just haven't had the opportunity. Maybe I'll try making one 😁
Anyway... I remember in first grade, Sister Mary Claude made one of the longest welcome speeches ever over the loud sp...Expand for more
eaker (she was the principle at the time), and Sr. Mary Socorro gave us that 'don't you dare raise your hand in the middle of the Principles speech' glares; even when I had to go pee real bad. So I did. And so did two others. Welcome to first grade. And the old wooden desks were still nailed together by rows. They didn't open on top like the newer ones. They had a permanent opening on the side facing you. So you could barely see what was inside your desk. And every so often someone would pull out a book and all their belongings would tumble out and make a ruckus 🙊. And for the first half of that year the boys sat on one side of the room and the girls on the other. Later in the year they changed policy and it was okay to mix us up. We used to start every day reciting a prayer and the pledge of allegiance. Frankly, I still do, now. And I still get the same feeling I had back then...loving my God, and loving this country (no matter who is in office...God the father, God the son, or God the Holy Spirit😬). God doth have a sense of humor! Oh, and if you have not seen it, look up the link to: ‘Star Spangled Banner like you’ve never heard it’ story on YouTube. It’s so worth seeming and sharing with our young folks who may not be aware of the history.
In 2nd grade we moved to the new building. Nice desks, no ink well holes and the desks were no longer nailed down in a row. In the front left corner of the room was a statue of the Blessed Mother on a shelf just high enough to fit under it in the corner a precocious?, okay-disruptive, second grade student willing to, as George Carlin put it, "..deprive other students of their education." (Sorry).😬
Also, in second grade we were taught our first lesson in marketing; selling Easter Seals, to raise money for the Missions. Ten cents a page, $1 a book, remember? Am posting picture of the ES incentives, of the ones I could readily find at moms. I know there are more somewhere. You can tell a couple are at least 65 years old. Having a large extended family came in handy. You could sell two or three books easily. Later, the marketing skills were fine tuned as we had to sell $24 dollars worth of chocholates. Worlds Finest! And while we were learning to sell, we were also encouraged to save. In third grade, the Bank of America 'banker' would come to our class every Friday and accept our pennies, nickels and dimes and stamp our little 'passbook.' (Fastforward 55 years, and I'm still trying to claim my $19.41 from CA Unclaimed Properties for this 3rd grade passbook. And that includes interest! Woohoo! (Update: finally received my cash for this passbook: $14, of course they took out taxes.🙄)
In 1st/2nd grades I loved going to Mrs. Whitneys dance classes. Walking in to the 'Teddy Bears Picnic' song. (You'll find it on YouTube), or pointing our toes out and walking three steps forwards to ‘Tea for Two’. 🙄 (it’s embarrassing that I can even remember this) And then, "Bow to your partner and to your audience". And she always wore a pair of black ballet slippers.
Oh...on those other photos I posted. The 1st one, the Holy Communion photo, is with Theresa Gomez. I recall her mom taking that one. And just for the record, (and in my defense) Theresa was the tiniest person we ever had in our class not to mention the fastest...(at least I don't think I was that huge.😱) We were both in the second grade. On the second photo, the one with the uniforms, that was taken on the first day back to school. I believe that was 4th grade for me. That's me on the left. 😩 (and Omg, look at how long the skirt was. Of course it was only that long when we were in the house. By the time we got to school it was rolled up at least four inches) Martha is next to me, then Anna, with the 'not so thrilled to be taking this picture' look on her face and my brother, Henry (a.k.a Enrique). It was the last year we wore the navy sailor uniforms before changing to the new uniforms (thank you very much!) I use to spend most of my summers sewing all but the sweaters of those sailor outfits. There were the collars, and cuffs, that thick strait-jacket of a blouse, that under garment thing that held our skirt up; the skirt with all those pleates and all those button holes and buttons that held everything up and in place. Sewing those stripes in a straight line was no easy feat (now there's a word you don't hear too often)....not to mention how hard it was sewing those silk ties! And that was just for the girls. We had to make two sets for each of us. At least I didn't have to sew my brothers pants or knit the sweaters! I couldn't wait to get back to school!
____
Ok so I'm going to stop here (I got tired just thinking about it), and maybe continue another day,...or write a book.
I've thought about maybe scheduling a semi annual live meeting/ conference call. Maybe half hour to start. Will just pick a date and time and if folks are available they could call /log in, or both. Let me know what you think. We could share pictures that way and/or share updates. Let's see if they'll let me enter my email id here. Pay attention: it's the first two letters of my first name, underscore, first 4 letters of my last name, at yahoo Dot com. Hopefully you can contact me there. I don't do Facebook so you will not find me there (I mentioned I worked in technology). Will be careful not to share emails so no worries there. Thanks to those who already contacted. Looks like we'll have a good number for our first call.
Will have Updates on:
Margaret, Christine, Christella, Juanita, Sharon, Peggy, and Dale.
I haven't spoken to Tom Ryan, but I recall seeing him on LinkedIn. John, I've seen you and Dominic on linked in too. How are you both? I noticed Ellis signed in Classmates a few times...give us an update too Ellis.
Ok, that's enough for now. Hopefully we'll touch base soon. Would love to hear from everyone.
Love ❤️ Peace ✌🏻and God Bless you all,
With fond memories,
Josephine (Jo)
🙋🏻♀️
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