Fifty people drifted into the restaurant banquet room on a Saturday night earlier this summer in suburban St. Louis. It had been at least four decades since they graduated. Some of them have children in college. Others are grandparents. More than a few have graying hair. But their memories of grade school remained sharp.
Yes, grade school. The graduates of Holy Rosary Elementary on Margaretta Avenue in North St. Louis’ Penrose neighborhood had a lot of catching up to do. They are a far-flung group, coming from New York, Denver, Memphis, Chicago and, of course, parts of St. Louis.
They grew up in the 1960s and ‘70s in a far different era. Their St. Louis neighborhoods were like villages, jobs seemed plentiful and restaurants, hardware stores, bakeries and the beloved corner store still held sway. The streets were largely safe.
And, of course, neighborhood schools, whether public or parochial, were considered citadels of excellence where students could blossom.
Yet an informal survey of the Holy Rosary graduates from 1976 suggests that at least half moved away from the city where they grew up, and most never returned to St. Louis. It is a familiar pattern in some big cities, and the graduates’ exodus from St. Louis helps explain the city’s steep population decline since 1980.
Thirty five year ago, an estimated 452,804 people lived in St. Louis. In 2013, the latest year for which Census numbers are available, the city’s population stood at 318,416.
Keith Matthews is a product of that era. He grew up on Athlone Avenue in the Penrose area, attended Holy Rosary, Saint Louis University High and DuBourg High. And he recalls the duality of living in his North St. Louis neighborhood.
“I grew up a half block from O’Fallon Park in a house where my mom still lives. It was the true definition of the ‘village,’ where you could have blacks from across the spectrum socially, financially and professionally, and where elders were respected and had permission to correct any child at any time,” he said.
“It also had an underbelly where the criminal types operated, and you quickly learned where not to go and who to avoid.”
After DuBourg, Matthews graduated from the University of Missouri-Rolla and the University of Colorado with a bachelor’s degree and master’s in mechanical engineering. He is a registered engineer in Colorado.
After leaving Rolla, Matthews moved to Denver and began working for the Colorado Department of Transportation in June 1985. He celebrates 30 years as a full-time employee this month.
Matthews, like other students from Holy Rosary, prospered after attending the school, which closed in 1994 because of declining Catholic population in the area. The parish property is now owned by the St. Louis Dream Center.
Angie Elazier also graduated from the ‘76 class. She lived two blocks from Matthews on Clarence Ave. and recalls the “incredible bond” of the class “even though we disagreed and fought.
“There was a camaraderie there,” she recalled. “I have so many memories. We were a close-knit class, and some of us have stayed in touch through the years as a result.”
Like many of the Holy Rosary students, Elazier’s family was a member of the parish and it was expected that the children would attend the well-regarded parish school. “My mother chose that parish because there were other Creole families who were members,” Elazier said.
After Holy Rosary, Elazier enrolled at Mercy High School. Her sister had attended Rosati Kain, and her family and friends she would follow suit. She had other ideas. “That would have been the better decision, and it was assumed that I’d attend Rosati Kain but because I wanted to step away from my sister’s shadow, I chose Mercy at the last minute.”
Elazier also recalls an early, carefree childhood where she felt safe.
“We lived near the beautiful O’Fallon Park, even though we hardly went there,” she said. “I remember it being safe to ride our bikes in the neighborhood. It was multi-cultural when I was young, but by the middle of grade school, it became all black. The dynamics changed a lot at that point.”
Elazier, who graduated from Webster University in St. Louis and is a sales manager at Macy’s, lives outside Chicago.
Gayle Rochelle graduated from Holy Rosary in 1976. “My mom sent us to Holy Rosary because she wanted my sisters and I to have a religious education,” she said. “She thought the communication between teacher and parent would be better and she thought the school was a convenient option.”
Rochelle, then known as Gayle Carter, grew up on Clarence next door to Elazier. They both lived across the street from the sprawling DeAndreis High School, an all-boys Catholic school that closed in 1976 because of declining enrollment.
“Our neighborhood was nice and we played outside with other neighborhood kids and would sometimes walk to the corner stores for candy and soda. It was pretty safe back in the day,” said Carter, who also graduated from DuBourg High School.
In high school, Rochelle said her family moved to the Central West End in St. Louis. Rochelle is now a human resources officer for the St. Louis Park School system in suburban Minneapolis.
Rochelle says that Holy Rosary was a rock in a changing St. Louis, where busing to achieve racial desegregation had taken hold in St. Louis and suburban schools. Busing also sparked a prolonged period of white flight from once-integrated city neighborhoods. Holy Rosary, which was integrated into the late ‘60s, by the mid ’70s was nearly an all-black school, reflecting the changing demographics of the neighborhoods it drew students from.
Into this changing racial and social dynamic stepped a young, idealistic and energetic Patricia Bober, a Sister of St. Joseph whose life experience could not have been more different from the community she was then serving.
Bober, who joined Holy Rosary in 1973, grew up in the then-all-white Bellefontaine Neighbors area of North St. Louis County. The center of her family’s universe was Our Lady of Good Counsel parish. Her family attended church every Sunday and she walked to the parish school.
She went to Rosati-Kain High, playing in the orchestra, and graduated from Fontbonne. Bober decided she wanted to be a nun during high school, entered the convent after graduating from Rosati-Kain and went to Fontbonne as a sister.
Going to Holy Rosary “was my first introduction to being part of the black community,” she recalled. “But it wasn’t a big shock. I thought of it as working with kids. And the Catholic schools have been known for strict rules and demanding high expectations. I expected a lot of the students because we all thought this was the path to success. It had worked for others. Why not here?”
“Those were some of the best years of my life,” Bober says. “That class has become like an extended family to me.”
Now 66, Bober left Holy Rosary in ’78 to get a master’s degree and is now coordinator of Youth Ministry at Sts. Teresa and Bridget Church in St. Louis.
Bober said, “Those years at Holy Rosary will always be a treasured memory.”
Mark Russell was a 1976 Holy Rosary graduate. He is now the managing editor at The Commercial Appeal in Memphis.
