In celebration of Catholic Schools Week 2023, we asked the friars to share their memories of a favorite teacher who inspired them or a humorous moment during their time in Catholic school. We hope you enjoy their responses!
Fr. Henry Beck, OFM
Henry Beck, OFM
I have always felt blessed to have been taught by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur at Our Lady of the Rosary School in Old North Dayton. One funny memory that comes to mind is when I was learning to serve Mass. Before we served in church, we served for the Mass with the sisters in their small convent chapel. I remember thinking, “Oh, my goodness, all the sisters are just a couple of feet behind me as I respond in Latin and move the lectionary from one side of the altar to the other for the Gospel reading.” But I guess if we could manage the pressure with the sisters, we would do fine in the big church! One key sister who influenced me was my second-grade teacher, Sr. Mary Carl. She was a young sister and very engaged with us children. She left our school soon after I had her in the second grade to serve in the sisters’ mission in Brazil. Sr. Mary Carl actually served with Sr. Dorothy Stang, SNDdeN, who was from Dayton and later martyred there in Brazil. Her willingness to serve in a missionary setting really inspired me, especially as I began to consider religious life myself.
Fr. Michael Chowning, OFM
Mike Chowning, OFM
In the eighth grade in 1953-’54 at St. Anthony Catholic School in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., we eighth graders had a fully garbed Dominican Sister who we thought elderly (most likely in her 40s) who used to swing her long rosary beads around in a circle to the delight of us boys and exclaim, “Hang us, Jesus, we’re going for a ride!” Of course, we thought that cool for a nun.
Fr. Alan Hirt, OFM
Al Hirt, OFM
Sr. Therese Ann Campbell, OSF, was my eighth-grade teacher and our principal at St. Louis School in Batesville. She took an interest in this shy boy and encouraged him to enter some history project contest. She was especially kind and caring. I learned a few years later that she left the Oldenburg community—not quite adapting to the changes of Vatican II that she was embracing—and she joined another religious community, now using her baptismal name of Gertrude. I kept up with her through letters, and later would visit her in Dayton where she taught in a school for handicapped children, and eventually visited her in retirement in an apartment in Centerville. She has now died, but her influence on me in the eighth grade was so helpful.
Fr. Carl Langenderfer, OFM
Carl Langenderfer, OFM
My favorite Catholic schools teacher was Fr. Conan Taylor, OFM, at Roger Bacon High School. He was my biology teacher when I was a freshman at Roger Bacon in 1958-‘59. I think I learned more from him and his biology class than any other course or teacher that I ever had. He was very interesting and challenging. The whole world of biology study was new to me, and he was very well organized and demanding in his approach to the subject. I was in the first class of freshmen to take biology at Roger Bacon; usually it was a sophomore subject. I still remember dissecting a bullfrog and a fetal pig and visiting St. John’s Cemetery across Vine Street from Roger Bacon in the fall to learn about the different species of trees and how to use a tree chart to determine the kind of tree. I also remember “Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species!” when classifying any kind of plant or animal. I have had a bird feeder at almost every place where I have been stationed since that first year at Roger Bacon with Conan Taylor. May he rest in peace!
Br. Mark Ligett, OFM
Mark Ligett, OFM
One day during fifth grade, it was pouring rain outside, and so, after eating lunch, we went back to our classroom for recess. Because the sisters ate lunch in the convent, eighth graders were assigned to monitor the classrooms of younger students on these rainy, indoor recess days. One of my classmates produced a Whoopee Cushion, one of those rubber devices that emulates the sound of a human passing gas. We were all taking turns blowing it up and sitting on it. When it was my turn, I sat down, closed my eyes, and began moaning, “Oooh…aaah…” as the noise filled the air and my classmates cheered me on. Suddenly, there was dead silence. I opened my eyes and inches before me was the crucifix worn by the Sisters of St. Francis Oldenburg. Sr. Rose de Lourdes, my most favorite teacher ever, was glaring at me. I made matters much worse when, reaching under me to retrieve the rubber noisemaker, I said, “Sister! How did that get there?”
Sr. Rose carried it to her desk, holding it away from her as if it was highly contagious. Taking scissors from her desk drawer, she cut it into pieces, threw them away and invited us to open our reading books. For the rest of the afternoon I tried to redeem myself, but I left school devastated, thinking my favorite nun now despised me. The next day, life went on as usual and the infamous whoopee cushion was never mentioned again.
About 16 years later, I made my solemn vows as a Franciscan friar. Sr. Rose de Lourdes attended the ceremony. During the reception after Mass, she handed me a gift and urged me to open it right then and there. I did. It was a Whoopie Cushion!
She had remembered! After all those years. Not only was Sr. Rose my favorite teacher, but she is the one who planted the Franciscan seed in my heart, and why I am a friar today.
Fr. Fred Link, OFM
Fred Link, OFM
My favorite teacher was Sr. Francis Theresa, OSF. She was the new “Music Sister” at St. Leo School in North Fairmount here in Cincinnati in my seventh grade. My primary memories of her were her smile and her encouragement. Unlike her predecessors, she would stand outside her small studio between classes and greet us kids. I had the sudden desire to play the piano (we didn’t have one at home). My parents didn’t want me to take lessons, for fear I would start and then quit! Anyway, to pay for the lessons, I did grocery shopping for the pastor. Sister also introduced me to the organ. Her smile and encouragement led to a lifetime love affair with music!
Sr. Rose carried it to her desk, holding it away from her as if it was highly contagious. Taking scissors from her desk drawer, she cut it into pieces, threw them away and invited us to open our reading books. For the rest of the afternoon I tried to redeem myself, but I left school devastated, thinking my favorite nun now despised me. The next day, life went on as usual and the infamous whoopee cushion was never mentioned again.
About 16 years later, I made my solemn vows as a Franciscan friar. Sr. Rose de Lourdes attended the ceremony. During the reception after Mass, she handed me a gift and urged me to open it right then and there. I did. It was a Whoopie Cushion!
She had remembered! After all those years. Not only was Sr. Rose my favorite teacher, but she is the one who planted the Franciscan seed in my heart, and why I am a friar today.