Grace Hammond Moss is a 1911 graduate of St. Mary's and is one of our oldest living graduates. A vivid memory for Grace was when she first started at St. Mary's. She said all the nuns wore wooden shoes; she could not understand how they could wear them and not have them hurt their feet.

The nuns that Grace remembers were: Sr. Antonette, for whom everyone had to be just so; Sr. Alice who taught music, and Sr. Magdelene who taught German and other subjects. Grace remembers being thrilled when she passed her eighth grade exams and when telling Sr. Magdelene this, Sister teasingly told that they didn't count. Grace said that at first she didn't realize that sister had been teasing her.

Grace and her husband, Ira, had taken a trip to Mexico a number of years ago. During their travels down there, they started talking with a woman who asked where they were from. When they answered Nebraska, the woman then asked where in Nebraska. Grace and Ira told her North Central Nebraska, O'Neill. The woman from Long Pine (whose name Grace doesn't remember) said she knew O'Neill, as she had been a border at St. Mary's. Her father ran the Long Pine Park. To them this was another example that it is indeed a small world and St. Mary's is indeed known far and wide.

by Kathy Manoucheri