‘St. Maria Goretti Catholic School Special Collection!’
2008 to Present Date! A Fact Sheet…
To: All St. Maria Goretti Catholic School Attendees, Parents, Faculty, Staff, Clergy and Graduates/Descendants of Graduates, Interested Friends of Goretti!
From: Bernadette Monlezun-Pontón, Class of 1965, Email ~ leadkindlylight@bellsouth.net
Website ~ www.leadkindlylight.net/Heritage and Archival Special Collection
What: This is a fact sheet for an invitation toward collaboration for the archival
‘Saint Maria Goretti Catholic School Special Collections’ at the University!
Where/How: McNeese State University Library Archives and Special Collections Department, Lake Charles, LA., Office: 337.475-5734. GHS alumni have access to the collection and may borrow items for class reunions and other related events through an inter-library loan with the new public library in Lake Arthur!
Archivist: Pati Threatt pthreatt@mcneese.edu The staff collects, cleans, stores, labels and categorizes a collection.
Items include:
+ Artifacts: Clothing/School jackets, caps, pens, rings, uniforms, pennants, certificates, programs, newsletters, yearbooks, trophies, etc. + Electronics – Audiocassettes, Video (any film), recordings of any kind + Oral Histories + Paper: Speeches, Minutes/Reports + Photographs (labeled) + Scrapbooks/photo albums +Memoirs/Reminiscences
http://library.mcneese.edu/depts/archive/goretti209.htm
Whom: Accepting items from anyone affiliated with Goretti over the years; students, parents, faculty, descendants of students, religious, friends, etc.
Why: I have had the great fortune to work with Pati, a wonderful and knowledgeable lady in Archival Work on Collections in Lake Charles and Lake Arthur. As I work to honor and reverence those who had such positive influences on the lives of many people, I naturally think of Goretti, subsequently you. This is a way to reverence those who have gone before, those who are here and those who will come after us. This Collection in the MSU Library Archives can be accessed through the World Libraries for this repository of the heritage of a certain place and time which is a part of our collective memory.
How: Any items that you may have: 1) You are invited to call/email Linda DeRouen lder_99@yahoo.com or Vicki Thackston Ryder Vicki@jdbank.com at the Jeff Davis Bank in Lake Arthur at 774.3313 and bring your treasures to Vicki at the bank. For ‘identifying cards display’ she will ask you to ID the item/s and sign the one page Library Agreement for Permanent Donation. She will email me and, while in Lake Arthur, I gather up the treasures from the vault (!) and take them to the MSU Archivists for assimilation into the Goretti Special Collections. (You are of course invited to take what you have to the MSU Library first floor, Archives Department. (Easiest place to park is by the girl’s dorms at the intersection of McNeese Street and Arlington Drive and walk across the footbridge; the library is on the immediate left!)
Notation: Herman Monceaux, Class of 1965, poignantly said, “Father Harry Pelous never wanted the spirit of Goretti to die!” That spirit is in all of us! Could-it-be ~ this is a way for all the classes to be invited to begin the legacy process for St. Maria Goretti Catholic School memorabilia to ‘live together’ for we are all eldering in place! Amen!
DONOR AGREEMENT FOR PERMANENT DONATION
I assign and convey legal title and all rights of copyright that I may have to the below-described material to the Archives and Special Collections Department of Frazer Memorial Library at McNeese State University (hereinafter referred to as the McNeese Archives). I agree that the McNeese Archives may use the material as it deems most beneficial, subject only to attached restrictions.
CHECK ONE:
________ Material may be used without restriction.
________ Material is subject to the attached restrictions.
CHECK ONE:
_________ Material the McNeese Archives deems not appropriate for its collections may be donated to appropriate repositories or discarded.
__________ Material the McNeese Archives deems not appropriate for its collections must be returned to the donor.
______________________________________ ________________________
Signature of donor Date Street Address
______________________________________ ________________________
Name of donor (print) City, state, and zip code
______________________________________ ________________________
Name of organization (if applicable) Telephone number
The McNeese Archives agrees to receive, preserve, store, arrange, and describe the
material according to standard archival procedures and to make it available to
patrons, subject only to attached restrictions.
____________________________________
Archivist, McNeese Archives Date
Description of Material: ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
INFORMATION SHEET TO ACCOMPANY ITEMS IDENTIFYING THE
ARTIFACT AND DONOR!
“St. Maria Goretti Catholic School Special Collection’
Full name _____________________________________________________________
Telephone number/s _____________________________________________________
Mailing address/city/state/zip _____________________________________________
Email _________________________________________________________________
Name of Parents_________________________________________________________
Class of __________or, attended St. Maria Goretti Catholic School year/s _________
Today’s Date ___________________________ Initial_____________________________
List of Item/s:
By February 2008 I had gathered as accurate a list as possible of the Olivetan Benedictine Sisters of Jonesboro, AR who served during the years 1955-1978 at St. Marie Goretti Catholic Elementary and High School in Lake Arthur, LA.
The school operated from 1955 to 1989 a total of 24 years!
***If you are certain that some of the dates and/or names need to be changed, please email and I
will correct this list.
1955 Sister (S) Frances Hofbauer – 1956
S Martina Bolds – 56
S Madonna Gahr – 56
1956 S Remigia Dietsche – 58
S Evangelista Myers – 59
S Rose Lynch Wilkinson – 57, 59-60, 68-71
S Richard Hess Buergler – 57
1957 S Imelda Pels – 60, 65-66
S Florentine Tempel – 59
S Jean Marie Boeckman – 58, 63-64
S Carlene Knauf Church – 60-63, 67-70
S Carini Arami – 59, 66-69 d. 1 October 2011
1958 S Eileen Schneider – 60, 63, 72-75
S Denis Dougherty – 59
1959 S Berchmanns Weber – 60, 63-64
S Yvonne Lerner 60, 65, 75-77 d. 7 September 2000
S Lucille Bayer – 67, 70-72
1960 S Georgia Felderhoff – 62
S Maureen Hess Dalton – 62
S Eileen Schneider – 63
S Gemma Vogel Broussard – 69
1961
1962 S Cabrini Arami – 64 (d. 1 October 2011)
S Virginia Hellman – 68
S Jane Cecile Benoit Stubbs – 66
S Dolorosa Smith – 63, 65-66
1963 S Pieta Decker – 77
S Carmelita Myers – 66, 71-72
S Louise Frankenberger – 65
1964 S Monica Swirczynski – 67, 72-74
S Aloysia Kleiss – 65
S Gerarda Carns – 65
S Matilda Sparber – 70
1965 S Joan Hess Hayden – 71
1966 S Mary John Seyler – 70
S Romana Rohmer – 72
S Callista Swirczynski – 72
S Clare Sicking DePold – 68
S Edna Gomer – 68, 72-75
1967 S Renee Cormier – 68
1968 S Rosaria Foley - 70
S Lillian Marie Reiter – 69, 70-72
1969 S Jane Frances Dalmer – 77
S Elise Coco Fredrich – 70
1970 S Michelle Bullock Koch – 74
S Lillian Marie Reiter – 72
S Jeanette McGannon – 71
1971
1972
1973
1974 S Clare Myers –
1975 S Camille McNeil – 78
Recorded commencing 29 November 2007:
a) Deceased ~ RIP, Dear Ones:
Jane Frances Dallmer
Carmelita Myers
Clare Myers
Dennis Daugherty
Florentine Tempel
Jean Marie Boeckman
Evangelista Myers
Cabrini Arami
Sr. Georgia Felderhoff
B) From information received…those who left community:
Pieta Decker
Michelle Bullock
Rose Lynch
Virginia Hellman
Sonja Swirczynski
Clare Sicking
Jane Cecile Benoit-Stubbs
A BOOKLET WAS COMPILED FOR OUR 30TH HIGH SCHOOL CLASS REUNION HELD IN LAKE ARTHUR, LOUISIANA ON NOVEMBER 24, 1995. THE TWENTY GRADUATES IN THE FIRST GRADUATION CLASS OF ST. MARIA GORETTI CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL WERE REQUESTED TO RESPOND TO A BOOKLET SUMMARY ‘WHERE ARE THEY NOW’AND MORE!!! So I did!
GORETTI HIGH SCHOOL CLASS, MAY OF 1965
DATE: November 24, 1995
NAME: Anna ‘Bernadette’ Monlezun-Pontón
OCCUPATION: Homemaker
SPOUSE: Col. (Ret.) Hector R. Ponton
OCCUPATION: He plays golf in the morning and sails in the afternoon!
CHILD: Antoine A. Ponton, age 13, 8th grade, Our Lady Queen of Heaven Elementary School, Lake Charles, LA
FAVORITE ACTIVITIES-HOBBIES: Being with Héctor and Antoine and on the computer network with global church ministry as well as the Family Choir, Our Lady Queen of Heaven parish, producing two diocesan television segments and hosting Silent Retreats in my home.
FUTURE PLANS: To continue supporting my husband and son, enjoying my mother and extended family, serving in church ministry and eventually more travel – I want to see the Himalayas!
MOST MEMORABLE SCHOOL EVENT: Chipping bricks on the school grounds knowing that we were saving labor costs which were being applied to the specially made dye for the brilliant Blessed- Mother- blue in our class ring!
GENERAL INFORMATION: Where have you been in the world of ours? There were various career titles captured until marriage in 1978 to Hector Pontón, U.S. Army Officer from Puerto Rico. Assignments took us to Fort Bragg, North Carolina; San Jose, Costa Rica; Bogota, Colombia, South America; Denver, Colorado; Springfield, Virginia and Washington, D.C. Hector retired August 1988 and our son began the first grade August 1988!
MILESTONES IN YOUR LIFE: While in Washington, D.C. I had the once in a lifetime opportunity to enroll in a program at Trinity College called Education for Parish Service (EPS). The purpose of this program is to enable Catholic laymen and women to contribute more effectively to the work of evangelization by providing opportunities for spiritual development, high level instruction in theology, scripture, church history and methodology. After this two year life-changing (on-going) odyssey, I stayed on a third year at the invitation of Sr. Joan Bland, SND as Communications Coordinator as this course of study is operating on two continents. Presently, I am involved in church ministry at a parish and diocesan level as well as in Cyberspace being electronically faithful through an Education for Parish Service Computer Network! Antoine graduates from high school in the year 2000, the New Millennium!
IF I COULD GO BACK, WOULD I CHANGE ANYTHING? God, yes! I would have chosen to study more foreign languages and paid better attention in World Geography class! That all nine of my siblings would have lived…that the Paul Dupont family would not have had to suffer so.
MISSING THE OLD DAYS? There is so much in this beautiful God-created world…never look back but only live one day at a time by loving and serving others beginning in one’s own home.
MOST MEMORABLE EVENT? The night of our high school graduation, processing into the gym, the moon was full and shining ever so brightly through the top row of windows. Sister Yvonne, Donald, Mom and Daddy, siblings, all the people I dearly loved were in that room and the world stood still for that moment in time…There was so much hope…
WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT? I am living it…I met and married in my season. I had a son and am a very happy and contented wife, mother and daughter. My involvement in the church and its work is a constant source of fulfillment and satisfaction. I can only hope that it is of spiritual benefit to others and that the Good Lord sees it with good eyes!
17 November 2007 My Oblation Day!
Commissioned Order St. Benedict/Oblate/Holy Angels Convent
Jonesboro, Arkansas
The Good Sisters who taught at St. Maria Goretti Catholic Elementary and High School gathered for a photo session in the refectory on this blessed day!
Front Row, l to r:
Sr. Romana Rohmer
Sr. Cabrini Arami/RIP
Sr. Louise Frankenberger/RIP
Back Row, l to r:
Bernadette Monlezun-Pontón,OBL/RB
Sr. Mary John Seyler
Sr. Georgia Felderhoff/RIP
Sr. Monica Swirczynski
Sr. Eileen Schneider