School celebrates 75th anniversary reunion this weekend
By WAYNE CAMPBELL Class of ‘66
Sock Hops were the rage in high schools across North America in the 1950s and 1960s. Students wanted to dance. Staffs wanted to protect gym floors from being mashed and twisted by boots and shoes.
In the 1960s, Notre Dame did permit the compromise sock hops in its shiny, new Dillon Hall. A drawback raised a stink: dirty feet. Another compromise, a clean sock deal was afoot.
In those thrilling days of yesteryear, Notre Dame College School grew as hybrid: traditional and progressive, separate and private, local and regional with a strong academic and sports traditions.
Since 1948, it had blossomed from two private schools: Grey Gables and Notre Dame, in former mansions on Niagara Street and Aqueduct Street.
In 1949 on St. Patrick’s Day, students and staff took “The Grand March” carrying desks from the Cooper House at 201 Niagara Street to a new two-storey school building at 64 Smith Street. It opened for the 1949-50 school year with 250 students.
Through the 1950s, Niagara Peninsula’s only Catholic high school attracted more students under the guidance of Principal Rev. Patrick Fogarty of the Holy Cross Fathers. It was getting noticed as a little school with a booming sports and academic spirit.
In 1956, Rev. Kenneth Burns was appointed principal while Father Fogarty went on to set up Denis Morris high school in St. Catharines. It was a senior staffing formula that would lead to future Catholic high schools in Niagara Falls, Port Colborne, and Grimsby. Rev. Alphonse Bates took over as Notre Dame principal when Father Burns moved to Denis Morris in the ‘60s.
During the ‘50s the school adopted the school uniform that would be worn through the ‘60s and beyond. Boys put on blue blazers with school crest, grey pants, black shoes, optional collared shirts for in-school use. White shirts and ties were required for special school events, for travelling to sports or academics contests, and for anytime you represented the school in public.
We learned how tie a necktie.
Our young ladies had similar blue blazers with school crest, grey skirts of various styles, white blouses and appropriate shoes. It took a few years, but they won a sensible change to grey slacks. Until then during cold weather, they wore slacks under their skirts to school and put them in their lockers during classes.
You could earn a school letter to wear on your coat based on academic achievement and dedication to extracurricular activities. Lighter school uniforms of blue and gold sweaters, white polo shirts, grey pants or kilts for women were adopted in the ‘70s and ‘80s
Dillon Hall, the centre of school assemblies, of great sporting events such as the Tribune Basketball Tournament as well as years of graduation ceremonies opened in 1962. Along with it came a commercial industrial arts and home economics wing. Two years earlier what was called Notre Dame Senior School was built. It extended north from the existing 1949 school and included eight new classrooms for 200 students, offices, washrooms and storage areas.
The steps between the two sections were convenient chattering spots for students during class changes, much to the annoyance of waiting teachers.
The north addition was the separate school section. It was supported by Catholic homeowners’ education taxes. (Less than public secondary school grants to public secondary schools.) Grades 11, 12, and 13 were a private school relying on student tuitions and donations from the public.
A Fort Erie student bragged that each summer he won his tuition betting at the race track. As a private school students had to purchase their text books. A dealing system developed. You bought books from a student in a grade ahead of you. Then you sold them back to the original owner’s young brother or sister in the grade below you.
With the opening of Dillon Hall, the former tiny gym became a cafeteria and study hall. It served the best bags of potato chips and Joe Louis cakes coin machines could offer. The snacks went with your fresh milk and brown-bag lunches. The current hot food cafeteria was added in the 1970s.
The growing school of about 600 students required more teachers to join the Holy Cross Fathers and School Sisters of Notre Dame. The Vincentian Sisters of Charity from Pittsburgh and the Sisters of St. Martha of Prince Edward Island became part of the teaching staff.
At 600 students, Notre Dame was considered small. Baby boomer-packed public high schools had 1,000 or more students. Lay teachers, often former Notre Dame students, such as John Belcastro and Gilbert Beaulieu, came aboard beginning a tradition of former students teaching in their high school. It continues today.
Notre Dame College School drew students from Welland, Port Colborne, Crystal Beach, Fort Erie, Niagara Falls, Pelham, and Wainfleet. Denis Morris opened in St. Catharines for north Niagara students.
Only out-of-town students rode buses. The tougher Welland students walked to school or got rides from family and friends. On snow days, living within a mile of the school was a handicap for nerds like me. We walked through the snow and wandered empty school halls like lost souls until we found a pickup basketball game in the gym.
Late for school? “the bridge was up” became a common excuse for walking Wellanders. Until 1972 and the opening of the Welland Canal bypass, lakers, salties and other ships sailed past Notre Dame. In good weather, students took breaks socializing on the canal bank … gossiping, sneaking a smoke, watching ships and listening to industrial noises from Atlas Steels, the drop forges and Welland’s many other factories where many of their parents worked.
The spanking new fancy turf football and soccer field with night game lights and a great track and field area memories of an older tradition: Thanksgiving Weekend our 1960s homecoming. That’s when Notre Dame had its graduation ceremonies on Friday night, the prom on Saturday night, with early Sunday morning mass still in our prom clothes at whatever church was handy. On Monday afternoon was the classic Thanksgiving Day football game at Welland High and Vocational School.
Today’s Lacavera Field opens the door to such new traditions as did Dillon Hall in the 1960s.
Wayne Campbell is a retired journalist who worked at the Welland Tribune and newspapers in Ontario and British Columbia. He was a Notre Dame student from 1962 to 1967.
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