To celebrate the 75th anniversary of Lake Forest`s School of St. Mary, school board members commissioned Margo McMahon to create a commemorative sculpture, ”Mother and Child.” McMahon is an apt choice to sculpt the gift. Not only is she a graduate of Yale University`s fine arts department, she and six of her brothers and sisters also attended St. Mary`s.
As a 1st-grader, her teacher was current principal Joan Bransfield.
”This sculpture depicts the essence of St. Mary`s. It shows the interaction and conversation of a mother or teacher and child. They`re both helping each other and listening to one another,” said the sculptor.
According to McMahon, this commitment to helping one another, plus the school`s strong ethical and religious base, has served her, her family and classmates well through adulthood.
The statue is the focal point of festivities this weekend, said Margaret Sackley, a member of the steering committee. Friday featured a birthday party for the 450 children enrolled in the school. On Friday night the school`s 2,500 alumni were invited to an all-school reunion. After the statue`s dedication today following noon mass, the school will sponsor a luncheon for parents, alumni and parishioners in the park across from the school.
In its 75-year history, the kindergarten-through-8th-grade school has experienced notable changes. Interestingly, they`re personified in principal Joan Bransfield, McMahon`s former teacher. Bransfield first taught at St. Mary`s more than 20 years ago as a Sister of Mercy. She taught 1st and 7th grades.
After two principalships, she left religious life and was a planning and leadership consultant for the Archdiocese of Chicago`s Office of Education. Twenty-eight years later, she returned to St. Mary`s. As principal, she has been instrumental in inaugurating many changes also adopted by other archdiocesan schools, said Elaine Schuster, archdiocesan school
superintendent.
According to Schuster, Bransfield combined long-range planning with curriculum evaluation into a program that became a pilot for other
archdiocesean schools. She established a team from Lake Forest Public School District 67, Lake Forest Country Day School and other parochial schools to evaluate the school`s curriculum. This effort, coupled with establishment of a local school long-range planning committee, resulted in the school winning a prestigious National Excellence in Education Award from the U.S. Department of Education two years ago. According to Schuster, St. Mary`s is one of few elementary schools in the archdiocese to win this award.
The school has a tradition of augmenting innovative ideas to the traditional curriculum emphasizing literature, social and exact sciences, Schuster said. In the 1920s, when the school was composed of five classrooms, one classroom housed a two-year post-graduate commercial course in stenography, bookkeeping and typing. An elocution teacher from Chicago would visit the school weekly, alumni recalled.
”Here comes Red Buttons,” teachers in the 1940s and 1950s would telegraph to one another. That was the alert that Monsignor Thomas V. Shannon, the parish pastor, was crossing the school`s threshold in his monsignor`s cassock with its red buttons, recalled Sister Alexia, a former principal. He was the catalyst for many far-sighted ideas the school implemented during his assignment at St. Mary`s from 1941 to `58.
He required that all teachers at the school be degreed and certified. Instead of scheduling classes at the same time daily, he expected teachers to vary schedules. Each subject would have a chance to be taught in the coveted first period when he felt students paid better attention. When the Junior Great Books reading program was introduced in the late 1950s, the school was among the first in the archdiocese to participate.
”Monsignor Shannon was brilliant,” said Bishop William McManus, former archdiocesan school superintendent. ”He knew that the people of Lake Forest expected a lot in a school, and he delivered. He wanted a Catholic school that would be as good as or better than the other schools in Lake Forest. St. Mary`s was markedly different from the typical Catholic schools I visited.”
According to McManus, Shannon also required involvement of parents as a prerequisite for enrolling children. ”He felt that parents are a child`s first educators. Parents had to be educationally involved with their children to carry out their responsibilities,” McManus said.
St. Mary`s was one of the first schools in the archdiocese to establish a school board composed of nine parents. Adoption of an elected school board-type of governance for the school rather than the traditional pastor-principal form was a model for many other local parochial schools, Schuster said.
During the 1980s, a pre-school was established, as were computer and science laboratories. An opera unit was incorporated into 4th-grade work. Staff from the Lyric Opera of Chicago tutor the students and assist them in writing and producing their own original operas. They perform the work for their parents.
”The national recognition of the St. Mary`s School Board in 1991 and Parents` Club in 1992 from the National Catholic Education Association attests to the commitment and sacrifices St. Mary`s is willing to make,” Cardinal Joseph Bernadin said.
In 1917, the school was established at a cost of $45,000 by an enterprising former pastor, Rev. Francis Barry, who also built a new brick church there, according to Robert Hartman, new president of the school board. The original three-story building contained five classrooms, two music rooms, a playroom and assembly hall. The third floor had a chapel and residence for five Sisters of Mercy, who taught in the school.
The dedication was on Sept. 23, 1917. Among the initial 125 students were several who commuted using the Mundelein-Lake Bluff division of the Chicago-North Shore-Milwaukee Railroad, recalled Barry Fitzgerald (Class of `24). At Lake Bluff, students would transfer to the main line for the short trip to Lake Forest, he said.
Original tuition wasn`t recorded, but in 1933 the cost was $1 per month, according to the school archives. Construction of a new convent in 1950 allowed the school to reclaim the former convent for additional classroom space for upper grades. In 1958, to accommodate an increased enrollment, eight more classrooms, a library, gymnasium and cafeteria were added as a south wing.
In September, two modular classrooms were opened to accommodate increased school enrollment, said Rev. George Rassas, parish pastor. The classrooms house 5th-grade students, he said. They will be used until the school board can evaluate plans for any permanent expansion.
In nine years, school enrollment has doubled to 450 children, Bransfield said. There`s a waiting list of almost 30 children. Youngsters from neighboring St. Patrick`s parish attend St. Mary`s, as well as children from North Chicago, Highland Park, and Vernon Hills.
This growth in enrollment can be attributed to the area`s recent population increase and other factors, said Joan Fitzgerald, who has taught at the school for 25 years. ”Parents are looking for smaller types of schools with the teaching of morals, values and discipline,” she said. She is the mother of three St. Mary`s graduates and the wife of another.
”When I taught in the public school, I missed the opportunity to stop and discuss the religious aspects of what`s occurring in the classroom,” said Fitzgerald, a former Lake Forest public schools instructor who earns less money than public school counterparts. ”I don`t tell the children what to do or how to solve conflicts. We talk about how Jesus would handle this situation, what are some of the things he taught us, and how we bring them into everyday lives.”
Fitzgerald taught Catherine Herrmann, an alumna, and last year taught Herrmann`s daughter, Patricia, in the 3rd grade. ”I wanted my daughter to attend St. Mary`s because the values they teach both in religion class and through the school are important for children to learn,” Herrmann said.
On religion quiz day, Herrmann recalled, classmates would spend lunch hour testing one another on the biblical passage they`d have to recite. ”It was hard work, but I`m sure that Bible memorizing trained my memory so that in law school, when I had to memorize lots of case holdings, I could do it,”
said Herrmann, an attorney and Wellesley College graduate.
”So many people are interested in teaching their young children so many things that they forget the No. 1 thing,” said Victoria Campbell, a graduate whose two children attend the school. ”One hour (of religion) on Sunday isn`t enough.”
”One of the benefits of Catholic education is that religion can be expressed in virtually every subject that`s taught,” said board president Hartman. ”We`re trying to stress that everything has a moral basis to it;
we`re not just trying to impart the nuts and bolts of education.”
In addition to academic excellence and religious training, St. Mary`s expects students to provide service to others, Bransfield said. Starting in 5th grade, students work in area soup kitchens, visit nursing homes and hospitals.
”There`s a big emphasis on service and service hours that`s expected of them,” Hartman said. ”They`re not rewarded. Doing things for other people without looking for a reward is the bottom line. Helping other people should be a reward itself.”
Other social service projects include Christmas caroling by 3rd-graders at Market Square in Lake Forest and an 8th-grade Halloween walk in costume from the school to Westmoreland Nursing Home, where students entertain residents.
”When I went home after the Halloween walk, I realized that I wanted to work with people as a career,” said Betsy Hartman (`88). Her first paying job after graduation from St. Mary`s was as an aide at the nursing home.
In March, the school sponsors a senior citizen lunch in the gymnasium. Third-graders entertain the guests; 7th- and 8th-graders serve and visit with the guests. ”From talking to the senior citizens, I gained a deeper appreciation of them and their experiences,” recalled Ted Carson (`89).
”There aren`t many opportunities to get in touch with older people, and that was a good way to do it.”
This social service commitment continues after graduation. Victoria Campbell (`66) still volunteers in area nursing homes because of her school experiences, she said.
Not everything in the school day is this serious, recounted former alumni. Gloria Ketchum Kearns, who attended the school in the 1930s, recalled students sneaking from the playground during recess to ride the elevators at the Deerpath Inn.
Ron Peddle, a 1929 graduate, remembered occasionally missing school on Fridays to caddy at nearby Onwentsia Country Club.
”Your elementary school experiences define your values and what you hold important in life,” said Alfred W. Mansfield III (`64), the chief financial officer at St. Therese Hospital in Waukegan. ”The school has done a fine job.”
