Sister Mary Perpetua, RIP
Word comes of the death of Sister Mary Perpetua Gibson, CSJ, in her tenth decade of life and eighth as a Sister of Saint Joseph of Carondolet.
Her family moved to Amsterdam in time for her to attend high school at St. Mary’s Institute, and later she returned to teach grammar school there.
Doing a little backwards calculating, she must have been in her mid to late 40’s when she taught the combined 5/6 grade across the hall from my 4th grade class on the top floor of the old SMI on Forbes Street back in 1960.
Although she never taught us, she was a frequent visitor. Back in those days when a nun walked into the room all 43 of us were taught to leap to our feet and say, “Good morning, Sister. God bless you!” and Sister Mary Perpetua would say, “Thank you and God bless you, boys and girls. You may be seated.”
One time our regular teacher stepped out for a few moments and left us on our honor to sit quietly until her return. Soon the honor became a dull roar, but not as much of a roar as we got from Sister Mary Perpetua who stormed into our classroom and demanded to know who had been talking.
Approximately half of my classmates turned and pointed accusing fingers at their neighbors.
Sister was stunned. God is not fond of tattlers, it seems. Might have had something to do with the Commie tactics behind the Iron Curtain where kids were taught to rat out their parents.
“This is terrible! I want to know right now which of you just tattled on your friends!”
Whereupon nearly the entire other half of the class turned and pointed out the offending tattlers.
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God’s honest truth: this time I was innocent on all counts.
And greatly amused.
