Cathedral High School, Trenton
Closed in my Burg day but a place I am sure quite a few
Burg folks were familiar with or attended back in its
day. My Mom is an Alumni. The kids attending Catholic
High School in my Burg mostly day went to Saint Anthony's
in Hamilton, which was then renamed McCorristin and renamed
again later Trenton Catholic Academy. Some also attended
Notre Dame in Lawrence.
7 comments:
I could never get it straight. There was a time that each almost each Catholic HS was one sex or the other. When my dad went to Cathedral it was mixed in the 30's and when my sister went in the 50's it was all girls and then changed back to mixed in the later 60's?
Trenton Catholic was all boys for most of my memory.
I think many of the parochial schools "sent" someplace depending on the year.
Skip
....I REMEMBER CATHEDRAL IN THE OLDEN DAYS, FIRST BEING MIXED AND THEN JUST FOR GIRLS. I DON'T THINK THE GIRLS LIKED THE IDEA OF HAVIMG TO WEAR UNIFORMS. BOTH CATHEDRAL AND TRENTON CATHOLIC HAD STRICK RULES IN THE MANNER OF STUDENTS CLOTHES.
....I REMEMBER CATHEDRAL IN THE OLDEN DAYS, FIRST BEING MIXED AND THEN JUST FOR GIRLS. I DON'T THINK THE GIRLS LIKED THE IDEA OF HAVIMG TO WEAR UNIFORMS. BOTH CATHEDRAL AND TRENTON CATHOLIC HAD STRICK RULES IN THE MANNER OF STUDENTS CLOTHES.
A little background on Cathedral and several other Catholic high schools in Trenton. I can’t say for certain when St. Mary’s Cathedral High School opened its doors but a 1911 wedding announcement for a distant cousin states that she graduated from Cathedral High School with the class of 1904. (My mother graduated with the class of 1931.) Cathedral was coed through June 1936 when it changed to an all girls high school. Immaculate Conception High School opened in September 1922 and it too was coed through the 1935-36 school year. In September 1936 it became an all boys high school and fielded its first football team. Cathedral HS had played football prior to becoming all girls and in the fall of 1936, Immaculate Conception HS replaced Cathedral as the gridiron opponent for many schools that had scheduled a game against Cathedral for that fall. ICHS played all away games that first year. It wasn’t until 1938 that the name of the high school was changed from Immaculate Conception to Trenton Catholic Boys High School. The nickname of the school remained “Golden Wave”. Cathedral was known as the “Gaels”. Other parishes in Trenton may have established their own high schools during earlier years but by the 1930s Immaculate Conception and St. Mary’s Cathedral were the only parishes operating high schools in Trenton. Prior to the fall of 1936, I suspect which of these two high schools was attended was determined by which parish an eighth grader was a member. From the fall of 1936 until the Diocese of Trenton opened Notre Dame High School Lawrenceville in 1957, the sex of the student determined the high school that was attended. Parish affiliation was the factor that determined attendance at Notre Dame HS. The number of graduates of Trenton Catholic and Cathedral each declined by nearly 100 students between June 1957 and June 1961. Presumably these 200 students were now graduating from Notre Dame. In February 1962 it was announced that Trenton Catholic Boys High School would be closing at he end of the school year. Shortly thereafter, Msgr. Michael McCorristin of St. Anthony’s Church on South Olden Avenue announced that his parish would be building a high school on Leonard Avenue in Hamilton Township for incoming freshman and transferred sophomore students from St. Anthony, St. Raphael, Holy Angels and Immaculate Conception parishes. The teaching staff would include lay teachers and Franciscan nuns. The Franciscan nuns of Aston, Pa. were also the primary teachers at the grammar schools operated by these same four parishes. Boys from these four parishes who would have been juniors and seniors at Trenton Catholic in September 1962 would transfer to Cathedral High School. The new school would be named St. Anthony High School. Its first graduating class was in June 1965 (my brother was a member of this class). Cathedral was coed again from September 1962 until it closed in June 1972. In June 1979 St. Anthony HS was renamed McCorristin HS in honor of its founder. It was renamed again in September 2005 to Trenton Catholic Academy and divided into an upper division (grades 9-12) and lower division (grades 1-8). Earlier in 2005, the diocese had announced the closing of last remaining parochial schools in the city of Trenton and those students attending the grammar schools operated by same four parishes that made up the first classes of St. Anthony High School in 1962 would comprise the lower division of TCA. The Trenton Historical Society website has compiled a list of graduates of some of these high schools from a number of the yearbooks published by the high schools. It can be found at: http://www.trentonhistory.org/HSYearBooks.html
....THANK YOU STEPHEN, THAT'S ABOUT THE BEST EXPLANATION OF OUR PAROCHIAL HIGH SCHOOLS I EVER HEARD.
Thank You Stephen, I must make that a post its so good:)
Well that saved my eyeballs from smoking in the sockets. I had intended to go on classmates and break out the year and gender.
Thanks so much......Skipper
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