PAWTUCKET — When Mary McGaughey attended the former St. Edward School, the girls and boys had separate entrances and the uniforms were much more conservative.
As she recently walked through the halls of Woodlawn Regional Catholic School, McCaughey, a member of the first graduating class of 1928 of St. Edward School, reminisced about the years she spent in the building and remarked on how different it was now.
The enthusiastic graduate accompanied by school principal Veronica Procopio, visited most of the classrooms in the three-story school building, answering the students' questions about their school's history. In a Grade 7 classroom that was in the middle of a history lesson when she visited, McCaughey's presence incited a torrent of questions from curious students.
"Was the school segregated? What were the uniforms like then? Who was the president?" the students asked.
She remembered every detail. The school wasn't officially segregated, as far as she knows, but the city was certainly racially divided. The girls' uniforms were long-sleeved and high-collard, hot and itchy during the warm months of May and June. And, Calvin Coolidge was the president.
"I bet they don't even remember Calvin Coolidge," she laughed.
In another classroom she was asked to give insight into the Great Depression as someone who had lived through it.
Two serendipitous events led McCaughey to be at Woodlawn that day. First, a few years ago she found her diploma from St. Edward School rolled up in the back of a dresser drawer. She decided to have it framed and donated it to the school as a reminder of its history. Then, only a few months ago, she received a fundraising flyer from Woodlawn in the mail. On its cover was a black and white photo of St. Edward School students and McCaughey recognized herself.
The photo was taken around the time of her graduation from the school; she and the other girls were wearing graduation dresses they had sewn as part of a sewing class at the St. Edward Convent. "They were not classy, but we thought they were," she laughed.
When she saw that photo she decided to call the school. They were delighted to hear from her and invited her to visit her alma mater.
"I just can't get over how different it all is," she commented while walking through the brightly lit classrooms full of student work and art.
As Procopio introduced McCaughey to each class she was eager to impart to the students how rare an opportunity it was to meet someone who sat in their seats 79 years ago. She called McCaughey "a piece of history."
“A piece of history?” McCaughey asked. “I've never been called that before,” she said, laughing.
The Woodlawn students marveled at the fact that McCaughey lived in a time before television, not to mention computers and the Internet, and spent her free time listening to the radio, particularly a program from Pennsylvania she remembered that featured ghost stories.
McCaughey entered St. Edward School in Grade 6, the first year that it was open, because it was in her neighborhood. Previously, she had attended Fairlawn Elementary School. She attend Tollman High School following her Grade 9 graduation from St. Edward School. She has lived in Pawtucket since she was a young girl, raising seven children, and now has 12 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Like she did, all of her children attended Catholic schools. They attended St. Mary School, however, not Woodlawn.
She and Procopio reminisced about the school and McCaughey shared stories from her life in Pawtucket. She remembered when Route 95 was built; all of the houses in her neighborhood were razed except hers. Her father had it moved, on a truck, with all of the families possessions still inside, across the bed of what would become I-95. She still lives in the house, which now sits on the other side of the highway.
She will turn 94 in January and attributes her longevity and irrepressible energy — she drove herself to the school and visited classrooms on all three stories of the building — to luck. "I worked hard, but I was happy doing what I was doing," she added.
"I loved going to school," McCaughey remembered, but she sympathized with the difficulties that some students face today. "Kids have a lot more to put up with and contend with then we did when we were young," she said.
