There are Catholic events along the life of every girl and boy and the first, after baptism of course, is Holy Communion. This was immersion into the faith, and back in 1953, the date of this event in my life, it commenced by attending Catechism classes. That did not suffice because the week before Communion we all had to attend Catholic School anyway with all the "regular" Catholic students, those of us, the renegades from the public school hoods. Oh what torture this became; we kids from the hoods were mandated to arrive at the school promptly before 7:30AM, thirty minutes before the rest of the class so that we could do our assigned church chore which was some sort of penance for not attending Catholic school; this was followed by daily attendance at mass.
And oh, those nuns! My grandmother was enamored of the "Blessed Sisters" which is what she called them but to me they were some sort of cross between a penguin and dungeon keepers. The rules were ever so many that were not to my liking; I was not a bad child, just headstrong, a good student but fairly spoiled and used to doing things my way. The Litany of rules included not to be talking in class, sitting just so, no fidgeting, and worst of all for myself, no making faces. It is a lifelong trait that I can roll my eyes and show a full gamut of expression with my face and lips. Sometime I must write about my episodes with the nuns, the only time my Grandma was ever cross with me was when those Nuns would call her and report my daily activities, I really could not understand why someone whom Grandma thought so holy could be such tattletales. But daily it seemed that there was something I did against their rules. It was a week marked by suffering in my opinion never having had such immersion into the Catholic ways.
I was excited about getting a white dress for Communion, which meant a trip to our town's fancy store. For this event, my other Grandmother, whom I hardly ever saw, (my father's mother, there was worse than bad blood between her and Mom,) announced that she wanted to buy my dress. Well, she had not yet been shopping with me but she was soon to learn about my opinions. Both grandmothers, Mom and myself arrived at the store and the minute I saw the dress I knew it was "the one" it had some lace rows with rhinestones along the skirt and I loved my sparkles even back then. Trouble was it did not fit and Mom promptly began to get others for me, but of course they were too plain. I had seen the diamonds and they had to be mine! Mom was not so sure and tried to explain that maybe I didn't need that for Holy Communion, something plainer would do. No way no how! I protested such as only I could demonstrate, to the consternation of the saleslady, and I even went so far as to pronounce that after having to put up with those Nuns all week I deserved this! Only this dress or nothing! But my Grandmothers had already put their heads together and both being excellent seamstresses knew that they could make this dress fit with a few adjustments here and there. I was now appeased and pleased and Grandma Ball paid for the dress and then off we went to get white patent leather shoes to match.
Somehow we made it to the church, St Mary's, the Polish Catholic church in town. And off I went to join my fellow Communicants or whatever we were called for the occasion. Everyone came out for this event, cousins, aunts, uncles, neighbors, it was a big deal back then. Or maybe they too were just looking forward to the great gathering afterward and the wonderful food. Best of all for me there would be presents; kind of like a birthday in May instead of waiting till November. And I was celebrating that I would be back in school with my friends that Monday, the next day and done with the Nuns. At least for a time.
To every one's consternation, somehow, I managed to get loose before our grand processional entrance into the church. And as evidenced in this "professional" photo, those white knee socks told the tale. Of course being clever, I smudged them, thinking the dirt would rub away but it didn't. I can still see some of the Nuns scowling at me and "tsking.." To top it all off, I managed to make a face such that it further reflected my issues of the week; here I was trying to be as proper as I could be, hiding my chin and cheek dimples, not laughing too hard and somehow I came out looking like a baby hippo. But here you have it, my First Holy Communion photo.....I think both my Grandmas nearly cried when they first saw this. But at least the snapshot at Grandma's house was before dirt! There I am trying to look my sternest, trying not to make a face, but I was so repressed that I created a double chin....However the sparkles of the diamonds in the dress are there and I still have this prayer book somewhere in a drawer today. I survived First Communion!Click on the title to this post to get to the Sepia Saturday site, host blog where you can visit others in this international community.
