Memory Lane: St. Francis of Assisi Cathedral School celebrates 80th anniversary
By Chris Donahue
Staff Writer
METUCHEN — A flood of personal reflections, photos and memorabilia carried scores of alumni of St. Francis of Assisi Cathedral School down memory lane when they gathered to celebrate the 80th anniversary of its founding Sept. 19.
The celebration began with a Mass at St. Francis of Assisi Cathedral. Msgr. Michael J. Alliegro, rector, served as principal celebrant.
In his homily, Msgr. Alliegro spoke about the challenges faced by the Sisters of Mercy of North Plainfield when the school’s doors opened on the eve of the Great Depression.
After the Mass, the school was opened for tours and a reception was held in the basement of the cathedral.
Among those attending the reunion was Sister Patricia Meidhof of the Sisters of Charity, Convent Station, who graduated in 1946. Sister Patricia said she was the first vocation to a religious community from St. Francis, while one of her classmates, James Steffner, became the first priest.
“Sister Mary Boniface was my first-grade teacher. I always wanted to be a nun and Sister Mary said to say Hail Marys every night,” said Sister Patricia, principal, St. Francis of Assisi School, Ridgefield Park.
Sister Patricia, who has been in Catholic education for more than 50 years, said she remembers singing in the choir and learning how to do the Irish jig in the third grade. “It was very happy days for everyone,” she said.
Thomas O’Brien, one of 13 members of the class of 1935, began attending St. Francis in second grade after getting expelled from a public school.
O’Brien, whose three children graduated from St. Francis, remembers sharing a taxi ride to school with several other students for 50 cents a week.
“I liked everything about it,” O’Brien said. “I had to be a good boy when I was here, too. I didn’t get in any fights.”
Patricia Freis Ackerson, an art teacher at St. Francis, graduated from the school in 1986. She grew up in Metuchen and always considered St. Francis part of her family, which is why she came back to work there.
Dolores Salomone, a graduate of 1963, remembers when the girls and boys were segregated by floors and having to get under her desk for air-raid drills because it was during the Cold War.
St. Francis, which was originally staffed by the Sisters of Mercy from North Plainfield, cost $50,000 to build, according to school archives. Additional classrooms were added in 1951 and 1955.
The first year, 81 students attended grades one through three in eight classrooms in the two-story, red brick building. By 1933, all eight grades were represented.
In 1934, the first graduating class consisted of 15 boys and 15 girls.
In 1981, when the Diocese of Metuchen was established, the Church of St. Francis of Assisi became known as St. Francis of Assisi Cathedral, and its school became St. Francis Cathedral School.
The Sisters of Mercy administered the school until June 2001 when the leadership was put in the hands of a lay principal.
The Sisters of Christian Charity now serve the school, which was selected as the diocese’s Spotlight on Education School in 2007.
More than 3,500 graduates have passed through the doors of St. Francis.