I hope to start a conversation with women who were sent away to a Catholic boarding school, especially if you attended St. John Villa Academy in Staten Island, NY. Ours was a unique experience. I can still summon myriad feelings of isolation, abandonment, loneliness, fear, etc., even though I was a boarder back in the Sixties. My time there for two years (1967-1969) and at St. Mary’s Academy (1966-67) in Lakewood, NJ, have stayed with me always. I loved attending grammar school, but hated being a boarder. I long dreamed of the day I would become a day student, someone who could go return to a real home every day after school and be greeted with love, not a stern nun, strict regulations and more regimentation.
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October 23, 2008 at 11:42 pm
I’m one of the gals “sent away” with Delia. One of the most profound feelings I have as a “feel back” to that time is yearning. The boarding school we went to was not a Choate, where privileged similarly-situated people went. No, this was close enough to our parents to be confusing as to why we were just “sent away”. Now, mind you, the academics were excellent and my love of learning was nurtured and applauded here. Having reconnected with my beloved friend, what I am most left with is the kind of pure love and safety that is shared between children. We never spoke these feelings to each other and yet we knew we shared what we could not articulate at such a tender age. It is that love, purity and safety that remains most of all – blessedly.
October 31, 2008 at 6:24 pm
What a nice surprise to find your comment on my website with access to your blog. Are you working on a book about Catholic Boarding Schools?
Our experiences as a boarder were quite different. Whereas you longed to return home after school, I did not. I was a day scholar who longed to be a boarder. When my family moved to Puerto Rico I missed Holy Child and was eventually allowed to return there as a boarder. I loved everything about boarding school. The nuns were mostly wise and loving women, the atmosphere was intensely spiritual, and the structure was more stable than than at home. My entering the monastery right after graduation was primarily due to the influence of the nuns.
November 1, 2008 at 3:02 pm
What timing!I picked up your memoir, The Scent of God, at the library today.
You were fortunate to enter a boarding school with such a nurturing atmosphere. I was talking to my two childhood friends and reminiscing, but certainly not in a nostalgic way. It was truly sad. I’ve added another post about an article about memoirs, which was in today’s Wall St. Journal, that you may find interesting. I hope to write a memoir about my boarding school days to explore its meaning in my life.
November 7, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Thanks for stopping by. I’ve written quite a few posts about boarding school – and my sisters have also commented on these posts. We were four kids – a boy and three girls. My brother was sent to a boarding school at a very early age (in the UK) because my dad was a diplomat. He suffered terribly at school – ‘fagging’ – that means acting as a slave – for the bigger boys, being bullied and also beaten by teachers.
My three sisters and I went to a very strict Church of England boarding school in the early 70s. I’m the oldest girl. My younger sis and myself hated boarding school. Only the middle one enjoyed it. That’s because to this day, she likes discipline and following rules.
For me, boarding school was like a prison. But I survived and it developed my sense of humour, and my strength as a person. But I have never ever set foot in my old school since then. And I never will.
November 7, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Sorry – meant to say I’m Lady Fi at: http://ladyfi.wordpress.com/
November 9, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Hi, Ladyfi–
I’ll be chronicling my unhappy years in boarding school. In some ways, it felt like we were orphaned, all alone with a nun who inflicted punishments for things I know now are everyday healthy behavior, not misdeeds. Stay in touch and alert me the next time you post more on your boarding school days.
Thanks for writing!
Delia
http://girlssentaway.wordpress.com
November 24, 2008 at 7:58 am
I didn’t go to a boarding school but always found it fascinating and even fantasized about it some: Those few times when you hate the rules of home and wish you could go to school far far away and live with your friends at the same time. Depending on the viewpoints – it looked like fun.
May 12, 2009 at 7:13 pm
You mean life in a Catholic boarding school wasn’t like it was depicted in the Haley Mills movie, “The Trouble With Angels?”. I wanted to go “off” to school after watching that movie. How silly of me.
May 14, 2009 at 1:47 pm
I went as a boarder to St. Mary’s convent in Shaftesbury, Dorset in England 1966-1969. From when I was 9 til I was 12. (I’m American, not English!). Amazing to stumble upon your site. Are you still interested in finding others?
May 14, 2009 at 3:08 pm
I would welcome hearing about your experiences! Do tell.
June 17, 2009 at 2:34 pm
I was a boarder at St. John’s Villa Academy during my Sophmore year 1958-1959. Unlike the sounds I am hearing from most of you, I loved it.
I was first a day student along with my older sister who was a senior at the time. I honestly do not recall why I was enrolled as a boarder half way through the school year, but I was, against my will. I did not smoke, drink or do drugs. I didn’t use bad language,didn’t hang around with the wrong kind of kids, didn’t stay out at night.
Our only problem is that I didn’t get along with my Mother at the time. And, my Father was always traveling on business. So my sister and I traveled together everyday to school from Brooklyn to Staten Island. Until, that is, I became a boarder.
I had a private room at the school. Within the first week or so I came down with Strep Throat and was quantined. My sister came to visit me and the school immediately quarantined her as well (in the school). The consequence of that was that she, too, became a boarder — at her own wish.
We were then switched to a double room that we shared. Within a month or so we switched roommates so that we could share a room with boarders of our own age group.
We made lots of friends and enjoyed our time at the school. On almost every weekend my sister and I went to friends who lived where we had a summer home. We found the school environment friendly, upbeat and a positive experience. My sister and I then chose to switch to a dormitory. It was more fun. The dorm was an L-shape. My sister and I shared the short end of the L and there were, if I recall correctly, 5 other boarders in the room.
My sister and I would wait until lights were out and then we would spook one or two of the other girls and race for our beds before the nuns could catch us. When they would come in and ask what was going on, no one would say anything. It frustrated the nuns somewhat but we had all become close friends and the ability to laugh alot together was terrific.
Then something incredible happened. My sister and I had returned one Sunday from our New Jersey weekend trip when the Sister in charge (there were actually two) but this one in particular asked us, when we came into the TV room, for our weekly donation. At that time we had alot of exchange students who had no place to go on the weekends so all the boarders had to contribute a small amount to a fund that was used for those boarders to go to the movies or some outing on weekends. I said “Oh, I’ll get it” and turned to go to my locker. The nun yelled out: “What did you say?” My sister, standing beside me, said “She said she would go get it.” The nun said that wasn’t what I said and ordered us to our room. When we got to our room (remember this was a dorm), she followed us in and told us to get down on our knees. My sister said “I won’t get down on my knees to anyone.” The nun stormed out saying she was calling our parents.
My sister and I panicked. We thought we would be in serious trouble, so we ran away from the school, taking a bus to the ferry and the ferry from Staten Island to Manhattan to catch a bus to New Jersey. While waiting on the ferry as it loaded passengers and cars, we saw our Father’s car drive onto the ferry. He apparently guessed where we were headed and decided to try to catch up. Talk about panic. Here we were, trapped on a ferry with our father who was probably angrier than hell.
Figuring he wouldn’t kill us in front of everyone, we waited for him to come to the upper deck and he met us. Told us to go down to the car. Alittle frightened, we did. We got in the back seat not knowing what he would do. What he did was turned around and said, “Now tell me, what happened?”
We told him. We did go back and talk to Mother Veronica. She was a terrific principal with a kind and understanding heart. But given the behavior of the nun in charge of the boarding section, we elected not to return. Instead we moved to Virginia. However, by this time it was nearing graduation time for my sister and it would be unfair if she did not graduate with her class. So she did return for finals and for graduation. I never did, but I missed the school.
Most of the nuns at the school were terrific. What happened to the one that made the false accusation against me, I don’t know. She knew me better and knew I would never say anything that may have been nasty. She never did tell us what she thought I said.
I still have fond memories of St. John’s. Even the event that caused my departure has left me with some fond memories. The one thing I must say is: I wish it never happened. I wonder how my life would have been different if I had continued at St. John’s.
We had structure there. We had fun there. We had good food. We had laughter. More laughter and good friends than I ever had in any other school. No one there in the boarding section ever claimed to be miserable or lonely. We had all somehow become family, not just friends.
August 17, 2010 at 6:46 am
I went to Catholic school in Boston (day), although it had some boarders at the time, run by RSCJ nuns, and my mother attended an Ursuline School in Westchester, NY. Her aunt was an Ursuline sister at the College of New Rochelle. While I loved boarding school books as a child and still collect them to this day, I always suspected that real boarding school life would not be a whirl of midnight feasts and best friends. However, there is a listserv for those like me who still enjoy Antonia Forest, Elinor Brent-Dyer, and Enid Blyton!
September 13, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Yes, Enid Blyton had alot to do with me wanting to go to boarding school — and though it was not like the books, for me it was pretty much a very good experience — and I am not a conformist, well-behaved conservative — somehow the school I went to was freeing from my family and home — it was the closest I could get to my own apartment when I was nine.