We lost two classmates before they even became juniors.
Fifty-two years ago, on this date, a Thursday then, we awoke and learned, or came to school and found out, that Richard McGurk had died the night before. Richie had been wounded when he and his brother, Raymond, a freshman at Cathedral, were, according to the police, “horsing around” in the family kitchen. It was sad and shocking news, as the headline in the January 18, 1962, Springfield Union shows.
The article, at right (click to enlarge), reported that Richie had died on a Mercy Hospital operating table at 9:29 pm the previous night, less than two hours after he had been stabbed, near the heart. His brother, Ray, the article said, “collapsed from shock following the accident” and was admitted to Mercy Hospital in fair condition.
We didn’t have official grief counselors come to school to help students and teachers in their grief, as is common today. But it is likely that nuns and priests, and fellow students, played that role and likely well. Perhaps there were official gatherings at school at which prayers were said, and prayers said in various classes, but many students probably went through that Thursday and Friday, and then the wake Friday night and funeral Saturday morning, in a daze. Richie’s obit, from the Daily News of January 18, 1952, is above left (click to enlarge).
No mention of Richie’s death appeared in the Cathedral Chronicle, perhaps because of the tragic circumstances and because most everyone knew what had happened. There was, in the September 29, 1961, issue of the Chronicle, a few months earlier, notice of the death of Gerard Plante on August 27 (above right, click to enlarge). The tribute to Gerard bore the rather odd title “Frosh Departs . . .”
Gerard had been hospitalized for several weeks prior to his death. His death, then, was less shocking than that of Richie McGurk’s, but no less sad. As an indication of his pleasure at being a student at Cathedral and a member of our class, he was buried in his uniform blazer.
Okay, antiquarians (a much nicer term than hoarders), whadya got? What stuff from CHS did you hang on to for . . . ahem . . . 50 years?
Jacqui Artiano Ruest is sending in Minstrel Revue programs and has sent photos of her beanie (top) and “Top Tech” pin.
