Mercy reunion draws alumnae from 1935-1992

In his Civil War diary, Abraham Lincoln used the term “angels of mercy” to describe the nuns in his midst.

“Of all the forms of charity in the hospitals, those of some Catholic sisters were the most efficient,” wrote Lincoln. “More lovely than anything I have ever seen in art are the pictures of those modest sisters, going among the suffering and the dying.”

Lincoln’s observation was recalled at a recent Mass and brunch celebrating the legacy of three shuttered, all-girls’ schools operated by the New Orleans Sisters of Mercy: Redemptorist Girls High, Holy Name of Jesus High and Mercy Academy. Although their alma maters have three different names, the 215 attendees, representing the classes of 1935 though 1992, collectively classify themselves as “Mercy Alumnae.”

“If Lincoln thought the Catholic sisters were angels of mercy in the hospitals, imagine what Lincoln would have thought about the angels of mercy in the classroom at Mercy schools!” said Redemptorist Father Byron Miller, speaking at the Sept. 18 Mass at Chateau Estates Country Club. “But I’ll leave it up to you to determine if the real angels were the Mercy nuns or the students they taught!”

Redemptorist Girls High

Ida Mae Harvey Rousselle, 88, would walk or roller-skate the mile from her Irish Channel home to Redemptorist Girls High, which operated at Prytania and Third streets from 1929 to 1953.

“The nuns instilled in us the love of our religion – the love of being Catholic – and trust in God and the Blessed Mother,” said Rousselle, a 1939 graduate and a member of the “Youthful Elders” group at St. Catherine of Siena.

“We were taught everything by the Sisters of Mercy,” Rousselle said. “They encouraged us to study and to read a lot, and they couldn’t have been much older than us – the girls who taught us.”

Rousselle recalls the time she danced to swing music, courtesy of a Victrola phonograph, in the school basement with a classmate. Sister Therese, her freshman teacher, showed up, out of the blue.

“I froze in that spot because I knew I was gonna get chastised for doing the breakaway,” said Rousselle of the dance move in which the dancer spins out his or her partner. “So I said, ‘ Sister, let’s dance.’ I grabbed Sister Therese and started swinging her. Her habit was swinging in the air!”

Instead of a dressing down, Rousselle received a lesson on vocation.

“Sister Therese said, ‘Ya know, I haven’t worn this habit all my life. I used to go to parties, but I had a higher calling. I wanted to go where God called me to go,’” Rousselle said.

“There’s nothing like the nuns,” she added, noting that her graduating class of 38 girls produced three sisters. “Now no one wants to become a nun. I go to my grandchildren and say, ‘Wouldn’t you like to become a nun to save souls?’ That’s what it’s all about!”

HNJ High

The Sisters of Mercy ran another all-girls’ high school in Uptown New Orleans – Holy Name of Jesus – following their 1909 purchase of a School Sisters of Notre Dame property at St. Charles Avenue and Calhoun Street. Located for many years on the third floor of today’s Holy Name of Jesus Elementary, the high school was based out of four homes between LaSalle and Freret streets by the time Bonnie Pepper Cook was a student.

“We went to school in ‘the front room’, or ‘the back room’, or ‘the bedroom,’ and we had school in the two front parlors of the old convent on Calhoun when we were seniors,” said Cook, a 1959 graduate and this year’s recipient of the Mother McAuley Award, given to an alumna who exemplifies the spirit of Sisters of Mercy founder Catherine McAuley.

Cook, who grew up in old Jefferson, commuted to school on the Jefferson Highway bus and St. Charles Avenue streetcar. She said she and her schoolmates would get excited when campus events fell on Saturdays – the day neighboring Temple Sinai Synagogue was open.

“Prior to Vatican II Catholics could not go into churches that were not Catholic,” notes Cook, 69. “On Saturdays we could look into the synagogue and see that (Jewish people) were just like us.”

Cook, a retired police detective, said her Sisters of Mercy teachers and lay teachers expected all students to succeed at a high level of academic excellence.

“No one was expected to fail. No one,” she said. “I will put my elementary and high school education at Holy Name of Jesus up against anything that is taught today. It was the most wonderful foundation you could ever receive.”

Mercy Academy

Rising enrollment prompted the Sisters of Mercy to build Mercy Academy on the cottages’ site in 1961. It graduated its final class of girls in 1992.

Mary Lou Voelkel Schmidt attended Mercy when it was a high school of about 400 girls, alternatively serving as student council secretary, treasurer and vice president. Schmidt’s sophomore year of 1966-67 was literally a “banner” one: Mercy captured the junior varsity and varsity championship titles in both volleyball and basketball under Coach William Rappold.

“Whatever level (of athletic ability) you came to him with, Coach could take you to a higher level, whether you were a natural athlete or you were someone who simply had a desire to play,” said Schmidt, 60, a special education teacher and St. Ann parishioner.

Schmidt remembers playing jukebox favorites such as “Dock of the Bay” and “Hey Jude,” the valuable suitcase-packing tips of her social studies teacher, Mrs. Carras, and the “Families” program, which teamed up a student from each grade level for the entire school year as a means of fostering multi-age interaction.

But the pinnacle of Schmidt’s time at Mercy was the day Archbishop Philip Hannan and the Singing Damiens came to campus to celebrate the September Feast of Our Lady of Mercy in 1967.

“It’s right up there with all those city championships,” she said. “The Sisters of Mercy instilled confidence and gave me a perseverance in my faith that would outweigh anything that came my way. They tried to help each girl become the best person they could be, no matter what role they pursued in life. It seemed like the girls that attended, no matter what they competed in, they excelled in.”

The Mercy Alumnae Association welcomes e-mails to mercyalumnae@yahoo.com.

Beth Donze can be reached at bdonze@clarionherald.org.