The Belles of Saint Mary's

Saint Mary's School friends, clockwise from left: 

Tish, Maureen (Moey), Debbie, Lorraine and me.

On Tuesday night, I met four close girlhood friends for a long dinner. We originally spotted each other at Saint Mary's School in Dumont in the late 1960s*/early 1970s. 

We met last week at an Applebee's in Clark, New Jersey, midway between us. We knew they wouldn't rush us out. The five of us had not been together in at least 20 years. Some of us had stayed close and some had drifted away from our core, for one reason or another. Some we saw irregularly, at our parents' funerals in Saint Mary's Church, if we even knew about them.

The five of us grew up in a small, safe Bergen County town. Our Dads, who loved us loyally, did various work, from New York City bus drivers (Dumont was a bedroom community, with many residents relocating from NYC but still working there) to suburban white-collar corporate to craftsman. Lorraine's Dad, a sweet man with a thick Italian accent, was a shoe cobbler in Englewood. He sometimes fixed my shoes, too. 

We were raised in a working class town but had no notion of that. Our Catholic parents stayed married, for better or worse, in good times and bad, had parties for our First Communions, got new kitchen tables, refrigerators and cars when possible and always put food on our tables. Color TVs first appeared in living rooms in our girlhood.

Our mothers, who shaped us as much or more than our Dads did--they stayed home some or all of the time. Wait, no. Moey's mother went to work in a law office and then had important positions in medical offices. Debbie's mother later took a job at the bus line company in Bergenfield. After a while, Tish's mom would go to work as a bookkeeper. My mother, a Manhattan girl who left her young career as a chemist when she had her first baby, volunteered (Girl Scouts for Sis), then eventually worked part-time in the Saint Mary's School library and occasionally "collating" at some paper company in Dumont. She joined squads of homemakers for sporadic consumer product testing at Lever Brothers in Englewood Cliffs (now merged into giant Unilever). Anne loved B. Altman & Company, the legendary Fifth Avenue store, and worked at our nearby Ridgewood branch (in the "Fashion Center") at least one holiday season.

Whether they worked outside the home or not, our mothers were present. Moey reminded us Tuesday about Debbie's mother hosting us for Friday night dance parties ("My Boyfriend's Back"). Lorraine's mom was devoted to her family. She made Sunday family dinners with aunts, uncles and cousins. She baked Italian cookies by the dozen for Christmas Eve, even homemade pizza (a magical treat I once had in their Richard Drive kitchen). Tish's mom was loving and dedicated and the first woman I saw exercising regularly, on evening walks with her husband. 

And Moey's mom, Muriel/Mrs. C. Well--I idolized and still love her. She was kind, on-trend, smart, stylish, perceptive, can-do, balancing work and family life. (Moey has three younger brothers.) Modern; she was modern. She sometimes bought Moey CoverGirl eye shadow palettes! I was lucky enough to consider her a second mother, especially after my Mom crossed the rose-trellised bridge (alas, roses have thorns, death is not pretty). Muriel noticed us. She saw us. She was closer in age to us. (She had Moey in her early 20s. My mother had me at 36.) She cared. So did Mr. C. I have written about Muriel in the past.

We all had siblings. Lor, Maur, Tish and I with three each. Lor and I were the youngest. Maur and Tish were the eldest. Debbie had a little brother. Lor's Italian mother never drove, walked briskly in and out of town, to the grocery store and back. Always in a skirt and stockings, no pants.

Three of us attended Saint Mary's from the get-go, first grade. Debbie and Tish transferred from other schools later.  

We were the eighth grade graduating class of 1975. The President was Gerald Ford, and I had to look that up. I was thinking maybe Jimmy Carter. Ford was a short blip. But how could I forget how excited our young teachers were, knocking on classroom doors to pull one another out and whisper, Agnew resigned! in October 1973, when we were in seventh grade.

We five hold so many collective memories, it's hard to know where to start. Our figurative, pearl-encrusted treasure chest, if pried open, would reveal the navy, crisscross snap neckties we wore with our white blouses, plaid skirts and navy vests; a stray, mandatory knee sock; a worn paperback copy of scandalous 1984 read in Mr. Vafier's sixth grade class; a dried yellow giant pompom mum from the May procession, that lesson in pageantry and beauty in our otherwise plain sphere. Plain if you didn't really search for flowers and frills--if you didn't count the crown most every Mary statue wore or her lovely pale blue robe, the principal's glamorous strawberry blonde hair or petite teacher Mrs. Murphy's chic pixie cut, makeup and clothing.

We lived for school picture day, because we could wear clothes that were not our uniforms (in fifth grade, I had a yellow polyester pantsuit and long wavy hair, feeling like Jan Brady). We loved the Christmas Fair, a whole weekend in the school gym with a revolving tabletop Timex watch display (I'm not sure how you won one), a bake sale table, a crafts table, the white elephant booth (which was like a big tag sale, and Dad found electric mixers and other things there). I scanned the preowned stuff for unopened bottles of perfume or castoff jewelry.

We were girls together. Girls. Girls who brought lunches from home (sometimes Lorraine had leftover eggplant parmigiana, Moey scored Cheez Doodles and little wrapped candies or treats). I didn't like my lunches much. Liverwurst or tuna salad on cocktail rye, a whole big orange, which did not go down easy with those tiny cartons of milk. 

We were girls who had crushes. Sometimes, a pimple or two (me, wishing my mother would buy Noxzema or Bonne Bell 10-0-6 lotion or even Lip Smackers). Girls who knew girls who were mean. Girls who could be mean ourselves, though rarely? I cringe when I remember my own mean incidents. Girls who tried our best to be loyal and true to each other, within our girl capabilities, in our co-ed school (boys named Billy, Ron, Tom, Robert, Raymond, Kevin) and out at recess in the parking lot, near the stone grotto that held a statue of the Blessed Virgin.

I could write forever about these years, so much to recall and reconsider from this sixty-something vantage point, but for now, I think I better stop. We were shoulder to shoulder in Saint Mary's, through strict rules imposed by nuns (they left by third grade, needed elsewhere), through our first periods, Girl Scouts, birthday parties. Deaths of two of our grandmothers. We reveled in and sometimes toughed out public high school together, went to the roller rink, babysat, had our first kisses, first jobs, played sports (cross-country, track and for Lorraine, varsity cheerleading). We learned to drive. Tish was a gifted Irish dancer all through the years. We were bridesmaids in each other's weddings, wearing the fanciest dresses we ever owned, in peach, emerald green, hot pink. 

We now hope to meet at least yearly. Moey and I also treasure Fritch (Susan), another Saint Mary's friend who was absent. She lives in Florida now.

It was buoying to be together, to laugh and remember. To trust one another over artichoke dip and beverages and dinner with stories, the stories of our lives.

Good night. To be continued. I think I may have repeated the word pretty too many times, also. ;)

*Debbie and I were Brownies together in second grade (1968/1969), and fondly remember the Father-Daughter Square Dance with our Dads in the basement at Saint Mary's.