It Was The Greatest Experience Of My Life

I have always thought that a person's childhood memory is like an attic—a shadowy place full of mysterious shapes, but when light suddenly casts away the shadows, a magical place of long-forgotten treasures. In my attic, most of those treasures revolve around my alma mater, the Academy of St. Joseph.

I haven't been to the Academy for more than 25 years, as I left Long Island for college, then law school, then legal practice, all of which took me to different cities, none of them near the Academy. But the place is with me always, and during the past few months, has haunted me during my sleeping and waking hours. In my last post, when I wrote about Kathleen Woodiwiss (see my post "Famous Authors Who Broke The Rules, Part I"), I mentioned the Academy, writing:

"By the way, I attended a private young ladies' academy in New York during elementary and high school. It was a most wondrous place with 19th century buildings, sprawling lawns, apple orchards, and stables, all enclosed by a six-foot stucco wall interspersed with black wrought-iron gates. All that I am, all that I can be, I owe to the Academy. Anyway, one spring, under a big oak tree near the stables, I read Kathleen Woodiwiss' Ashes in the Wind to my best friends ... and we discovered exactly what boys wanted from girls."

Lately, as you can probably tell from my last post, I have had the Academy on my mind. In fact, I have had a desperate yearning to go back, but as I still don't live nearby, I can visit only by looking at old photos. Come with me on a brief tour.

This is St. Joseph's Hall, the main building that houses the high school. As you can see from the arial photo above, there are several more attached buildings of the same style and vintage (though the photo doesn't capture the outbuildings, such as the novitiate and nursing home). The complex of attached buildings house the high school, middle school, lower school, chapel, and convent (known as the "Motherhouse"). Among other things, the Academy has a library, auditorium, drawing room, ice rink, hockey field, soccer fields, four basketball courts, eight tennis courts, stables, home economics cottage, dozens of classrooms, hundreds of boarding rooms, and a number of music halls.

But there is so much more to the Academy. It sits on over 200 of the most beautiful acres of land with narrow roads, tall pine trees, and eye-catching vistas. In fact, at one time, it was known as the Academy of St. Joseph-in-the-Pines. Unfortunately, in the arial photo above, you can't see some of my favorite places—not the stables off to the left, or the apple orchards off to the right, or the cemetary behind the camera. But the photo just above captures a little bit of the natural wonder that surrounded me everyday. Oh, how I loved to walk down the rows in the apple orchards surrounded by all those ancient and gnarled apples trees, while eating one of the sour green apples!

Now, let's walk through the front door of St. Joseph's Hall.

This is the grand foyer. The only students permitted on this grand staircase (known as the "Seniors' Stairs) were seniors in the high school. Seniors would sit on this staircase between classes ... chatting (usually about the male—a foreign and unfamiliar beast worthy of close study) and reading (yes, we were bluestockings, which was quite at odds with our intense interest in the opposite sex). Any non-senior caught on the Seniors' Stairs had to clean it with a toothbrush. No, I never had to do it as an underclasswoman, but yes, I did see a student do it once or twice. In retrospect, whenever I walked through the front door, I think I knew I had walked into a different world—a world that had changed me forever.

Let's enter the drawing room through a set of double doors off the grand foyer.

I have many wonderful memories of this room, one of which I'll share with you today. In this room, actor Brian Dennehy gave several of us an impromptu performance from Hamlet (if I remember correctly). His daughter, actress Elizabeth Dennehy, was two years ahead of me, and one of his other daughters, Kathy Dennehy, was in my class. The Academy lent itself to writers and actors, inspiring and encouraging them. Actress Angela Lansbury stood on one of the breathtaking convent balconies during the making of a movie. Looking at these photos, I now realize that, during those days so long ago, I walked in the shadow of ghosts and the glimmer of greats.

Now we'll go out a different set of double doors, take a left turn, walk along a long wide corridor, pass through a hallway of all windows, go up a narrow staircase, turn left, walk along another long wide corridor, pass through another hallway of all windows, and go up a wide staircase to a landing and then up again in the opposite direction. And we've arrived at the auditorium.

I'd always dash up the stairs with such anticipation, and once I burst into the auditorium, I'd take a deep breath before walking slowly down the center aisle past all the huge stain glass windows and toward the one of St. Joseph behind the stage. Here I appeared as an actress in a production of Oliver Twist, and here I directed another one of The Sound of Music. And here I attended my graduation ceremony, taking first place honors for Language Arts. No surprise, I suppose. I think I might still have the medal (as well as the class ring).

Although I loved every part of the Academy, the chapel (known as the "Chapel of the Sacred Heart") drew me with a relentless force. I have no good quality photos to share, and I can't properly describe it to you. It is in the attic—that shadowy place full of mysterious shapes without light to cast away all the shadows and reveal those long-forgotten treasures. I do remember, though, the dark silence whenever I snuck in, and when lit, the breathtaking archways between the center pews and outer aisles, the golden chalices engraved with the names of nuns (part of their dowries, if I remember correctly), and the massive pipe organ that townspeople could hear from miles away. And if I close my eyes, I can see all of us walking down the center aisle wearing long white gowns and carrying white candles at Christmastime.

How can a place have such a hold over one's heart?

I don't know the answer, just that the Academy does ... and always will.

Now let me share my sorrow with you—this past June, after more than 150 years of continuous operation, the Academy closed its doors forever, leaving students in shock and alumni in tears.

Months before, when the Sisters of St. Joseph had announced the closing, alumni had turned to the press, including The New York Times, crying that they could have given more, that they would give more, that they couldn't say goodbye. More than 500 hundred alumni went on Facebook to raise money from other alumni, but ultimately, as the sisters' decision was irreversible, only to share their memories ... and sorrow. One alumni said, "It was the greatest experience of my life." I knew then that I wasn't the only one who had taken an everlasting memory of the Academy with me when I had walked out those doors for the last time more than 25 years ago ... never to walk through them again.

Is there a place that has such a hold over your heart?

P.S. The official motto of the Academy was "Ad Astra Per Adua" (which means "To The Stars Through Adversity"), but the unofficial motto of the Sisters of St. Joseph was "Give us your daughters, and we will find whatever gift God has bestowed upon them." One day, when I was about 13 years old, Sister Karen said to me, "You are a writer." After that, I was often placed at a desk in front of a window with a view of the magnificent front lawn (known as "Our Lady's Lawn") and given one hour to write (by longhand, of course) all I could write in one hour's time. That window is the second one to the right of the one over the front door in the photo of St. Joseph's Hall.

Text © 2009 Madeline Smyth. All Rights Reserved.