Their celebration 50 years ago had something of a cloud hanging over it. The group was, as a baccalaureate speaker noted, “suffering an irreparable loss.”
“It was horrible — very traumatic,” said Margo Kendall, a member of Providence Academy’s Class of 1966. She and 28 classmates were the final graduates; the high school closed at the end of their senior year.
“I loved the school,” Kendall said.
Others did as well. That was apparent Tuesday when two dozen women, including two of their teachers, were back at the Academy for their 50th reunion.
“The school was so small you could do it all” — debate, music, sports and student government, Caroline McDowell said.
Still, the all-girls Catholic high school was not everybody’s first choice.
“I wanted to go to Fort Vancouver (High School),” said Brigid Byrne. “I walked past it every day.”
Now, Byrne said, “I appreciate the education we got and the opportunities the girls had.”
“I had a boyfriend at Hudson’s Bay (High School),” said Susan Shinnick O’Shea, so Providence Academy wasn’t her first choice, either. But her parents overruled her.
And now “I think it was a great high school with great teachers,” Shinnick O’Shea said.
“I’d have never survived in a public school,” said Helen Dunegan Foster. “I didn’t want to study; here, we had to.”
Although the girls missed not going to school with boys, “I think we had more fun. We could be ourselves,” Dunegan Foster said. “It was like family. It still is.”
Family was a theme for several class members.
“My mom graduated from here in 1943,” said Carolyn Pleny Sommer. And her 1966 graduation isn’t the only Academy milestone her family is noting in 2016.
“My grandmother was in the Class of 1916,” Pleny Sommer said.
Many of the grads credited the Sisters of Providence with doing more than just teaching classes.
“They were strong, strong women” who provided valuable role models, McDowell said.
And that goes back to an original Sister of Providence who built the downtown Vancouver landmark in 1874.
“I pretty much idolized Mother Joseph,” Kendall said. As a multitasking pioneer who contributed to the Northwest in so many areas, “she was a great example.”
And Kendall said she’s followed that example in her own family: “I’m the jack of all trades — plumber, carpenter, electrician.”
Marilyn Wittenmeyer could look back at two different roles in the building. As Marilyn Glassy, she was a 1949 Providence Academy graduate. As Sister Marianetta, she taught French when the Class of ’66 students were sophomores.
“This is a delight,” Wittenmeyer said as she looked over the room filled with her former students.
“I never had any problems with anyone,” she said, although in her earlier role as Sister Marianetta, she might have give them some warning. As she walked down the hallway toward her classroom, “they could hear my rosary beads click.”
Tuesday’s gathering was a chance to look through scrapbooks, tour the building and tell some stories. One memory went back to the 1962 Columbus Day storm, when a tree was blown against the building.
“It knocked the third-floor porch off and set off all the (fire) sprinklers,” McDowell said. Because of water damage, “the school was closed for a month.”
