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Pictures from 1948-49 - From Ron Byrnes (email)

Notes from Ron:

I was at the Venard the summer of '48 and the following year. I stayed with Maryknoll until the end of 1st Theology in 1955.

There was a diner down the road from the Venard. I wonder if that is the diner in Clarks Green we used to head for when we set out on a hike day. I remember going there with my hike group one hike morning and ordering 2 platters of ham and eggs, something we never or rarely got for breakfast!

(Maybe this was the diner was near the high bridge carrying the Pa turnpike extension over the road. [RV])

It appears that the school for "wayward girls" is still around. We put on a play there one day and the women got so caught up in the action that they hissed the villain and cheered the heroes. I remember watching from behind the curtain while the "magdalens", the name given to the old, old women who had spent their entire lives there, marched in. They all sat in the front rows.

That "pond" sure has grown in size since I remember it. I have many b&w pictures of the Venard and surrounding campus including one of me ice-skating on that pond.

One day, one of the younger Brothers who was experimenting with plaster of Paris casts, asked to make a cast of my head. I agreed and he greased my hair and eyebrows, supported my ears with cotton, stuck straws up my nose so I could breathe, put a box around my head and poured in plaster of Paris. It was a little scary, initially.

He then made a mold of my head from which he eventually produced a remarkable replica of my head. I took it with me when I went home and eventually lost track of it. Several months ago, my niece in Florida was going through her father's effects and found the head. She mailed it to me and it sits proudly on my dining room table sporting a baseball cap.

That was over 50 years ago and I still wonder: who was that Brother and where is he now?

That place holds lots of memories for me as does all my years with Maryknoll.

The above picture shows 2 of the high school seniors at the Venard when I was a "Special" student. The guy in the middle I believe is John Guentner. If you look at the names on the back sheet (next picture) you will see John Cronin. John left the class early and some years later I spotted him in the choir of the monks at the Trappist Monastery in Conyers, Georgia where I was visiting a friend. I mentioned him to the Abbot while we, the Abbot and I, were watching the sun rise over the red Georgia clay. I returned a year later and could not spot John. The Abbot told me that he had left since his father became ill and he had to return to help support his family by driving a cab in Chicago. Quite a story. I wonder if he ever got back. Ron B.



Help - Who are these priests/brothers??

My guesses:

--------------------| 2 =? North,

----1---4----6-------| 6 =? Kiernan, 8 =? Wolken

----2--3------7--8---| 10 =? Grady,

-----------5---9--10-| ?? walsh, reymann ??


Cleaning the pool

End Pictures from 1948-49 - From Ron Byrnes (email)


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