Saturday, September 12, 2015

St. Mary's School, R.I.P.



The planned demolition of St. Mary's on Franklin Avenue in Flint has been delayed, but the home of the wildcats will disappear soon, another lost monument to Flint during happier times. 

Sarah Schuch of MLive wrote: "The three-story, 12-classroom school now sits vacant. The gym and locker rooms aren't like they were a decade ago. Cerca Boxing has been using the space. And the inside is deteriorating.

"Alumni wrote messages on the chalkboards during a fundraiser in May. Many messages include 'RIP' and fond memories."




Here's a collection of photos related to St. Mary's that have appeared on Flint Expatriates over the years. Thanks to Kelly O' Connor for the Jet League basketball photos.
























7 comments:

  1. I lived on Dakota and attended St. Mary's through the 9th grade. Lots of good times and so not so good, but made me who I am today. The sad thing is we need more school like St. Mary's not less.
    Edward Petiprin would have been in the class of 1962 if I had stayed.

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    1. I'm with you, Edward. Good times and not so good. Graduated from 8th grade in 1980.

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  2. Remember folks: Demolition means progress.

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    1. That's true most-of-the-time, my friend, but not always. In spite of the decades that passed in the interim, I could never bring myself to forgive my Mother for moving our family from our north-end Flint home the summer before I was to have begun eighth grade, my last attending Sacred Heart Catholic Grade School, in 1966. Shortly thereafter, I was to learn that the 1966-1967 school year was to be its last, sans me sitting at my desk with my remaining irritating-as-h@ll-but-beloved classmates, in Sister Annunciata, O.P.'s eighth-grade classroom. I never felt closer to God than when I attended there. All of it has since been demolished within the past decade, save for the "Father Blasko Center," across Stewart Avenue, where all of the school's students, barring inclement weather, used to eat lunch in the ground-floor cafeteria, play at recess in the adjacent parking lot, view "special treat" once-a-month Friday afternoon movies, during school, in the upper-floor gymnasium and roller-skate to the latest "Top-40" tunes on Saturday afternoons in the same. It was the best time of my life, "hands-down."

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  3. Had my wedding reception in that gym. 40 years ago.

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  4. I graduated from St John Vianney HS in 66. My sister was in the last high school class to graduate from there 4 years later. i understand it's still open as a grade school. It was a small school, not much of a team but we did have good spirit. We were the home parish of Fr Kavanaugh, the man who wrote "A Modern Priest Looks at His Outdated Church".

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  5. James Kavanaugh was, briefly, one of our two "Associate Pastors," at Sacred Heart Catholic Church/School, during the early 1960s. As I recall, he sported a "butch"-style haircut, with many of our female students absolutely swooning over his bright blue eyes, wide ready smile and youthful vigor. I read "Modern Priest," from cover-to-cover, while a Sacred Heart School seventh-grader. I was unimpressed, to-say-the-least. Mr. Kavanaugh died on December 29, 2009, at the age of 81.

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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.