N.O. high school that ‘ain’t dere no more’ lives on

Looking out from a second-floor window of her New Orleans high school, the teenaged Musette Barrouquere could see into the backyard of the neighboring convent, its clothesline laden with the distinctive habits of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul.

Starched and brilliantly white, each habit measured about three times the width of its wearer’s head, and was folded in a way that produced flanking, upside-down triangles.

The impressive headgear piqued the curiosity of Barrouquere and her friends.

“We always wondered what the sisters looked like with hair,” recalled Barrouquere, a 1960 graduate of St. Stephen High, an all-girls, Catholic high school operated by the Daughters from 1878 to 1966.

Regular get-togethers

After reviving ties at their 50th reunion in 2010, Barrouquere and her classmates began meeting monthly for lunch at a Metairie cafeteria to reminisce about the happy days at their now-vanished alma mater. St. Stephen High, whose convent survives as a private residence, used to stand at Napoleon Avenue and Magazine Street, across the street from today’s church and elementary school of the same name.

“We had the best lunches,” Barrouquere said. “Hot lunch every day for 25 cents! They made the best chicken fricassee you could ever want.”

The two-story, brown-brick school building presided over Lawrence Square, a grassy city block still occasionally used as a playing field. As gymless St. Stephen’s de facto P.E. spot, the square was constantly teeming with girls in billowy P.E. uniforms, practicing calisthenics, volleyball and basketball.

A simpler time

         “Everybody did things together. It wasn’t anything pretentious,” said Ray Ann Yrle, who grew up in St. Francis of Assisi Parish and took the Magazine Street bus to school from her home near Audubon Park. “The nuns were strict, but they were wonderful,” Yrle said, noting that sisters made up all but three of the faculty positions.

St. Stephen’s 1960 yearbook shows students tending sweet peas in the convent’s garden, in costume for field day and enacting scenes from that year’s play, entitled “Always Tell the Truth.”

Class members, who are now in their late 60s, recounted daily shoe inspections, socks that had to be folded perfectly in half and the no-makeup rule. Necks would crane whenever boys from their brother school – De La Salle – filed into the weekly Mass at St. Stephen Church.

The yearbook also captures the packed typing class of Sister Davidica, part of a business-heavy curriculum that taught students shorthand, bookkeeping and office management.

“When we graduated we immediately became secretaries,” said Linda McNamara, who grew up in St. Henry Parish. “St. Stephen students were sought after. Businesses would approach the school and ask the sisters to recommend students (for employment).”

McNamara said her fondest memories are of simply walking to school. The student who lived the farthest away from campus would pick the next girl and so on, until McNamara’s small pack of friends reached its destination.

Sisters’ sweetness cherished

Although they were strict, the Daughters of Charity were known for their gentle spirits and good sense of humor. Sister Maureen, a nun in her early 20s, would even let a few of the girls watch the television hit “American Bandstand” after the 3 p.m. dismissal, Barrouquere said.

Millie Brady, a retired safety engineer who commuted to St. Stephen from Harahan, recalls the day Sister Maureen was given the go-ahead by the motherhouse to undertake the new activity of her choice. She decided she wanted to learn how to drive.

“Sister had no car, so one of the girls offered her daddy’s car,” Brady said. “Poor Sister Maureen! Within minutes of taking the wheel, she ran the car up into the bridge on Washington Avenue,” Brady said, describing the era of her youth as one of great neighborliness.

“We would help each other out all the time,” Brady said. “If you needed a ride or needed someone to sew a costume for you, we would get our mothers to do it if we couldn’t do it. It was not a time when people had a lot of money, but it was a time where people were close and shared a lot of things,” she said.

“We just thought nothing went wrong outside our little bubble,” Brady adds. “The nuns instilled that little bubble to try to protect us. I am so grateful that I went to a Catholic school.”

Beth Donze can be reached at [email protected].