In any alumni association, it is quite a job to keep track of all graduates. Some are lost to us, principally because all members of their family have moved away. So it was with much excitement when I received a phone call saying that one of our graduates, who is 100 years old, was coming back to visit.

Lenore Daly Girard arrived in O'Neill on Monday, October 3rd, 1988. She was a 1907 graduate and had been "lost" to us for many years. Besides visiting the graves of her family, Lenore stopped to see the old home of J. J. and Minnie (Lenore's sister) Harrington. The present owner kindly allowed Lenore and her family to look through the house. Lenore had stayed with the Harringtons when she first started at St. Mary's at age 12 or 13. Previous to this, she had attended country school in the Mineola area.

Another stop was a visit to St. Patrick's Church. Of course, she remembered all the altars being there. After this, we visited the rectory. As time was short, she didn't get to visit inside the schools but her statement was, "The new buildings are not as pretty as the old one." But then, most of us feel this way.

During and after dinner, old family names of O'Neill, predominantly Irish, were being tossed about as if it were yesterday. I was awed by Lenore's memory. She remembered that when the Orphan Train came through O'Neill, the nuns went down to the depot and brought back a blond-haired girl named Marie. They adopted her, and when she grew up she went to Omaha to work.

Lenore finished off the enjoyable evening in the home of Beatrice Cronin Harty. They remembered each other. Lenore didn't know if Beatrice would remember her, as Beatrice was six years behind her in school. She asked Beatrice about members of her family and others. When she was told that they were all deceased, Lenore's comment was, "Well, I feel like I should apologize."

Lenore was in our town for a very short time, but she packed a lot of sight-seeing and freshened memories into it. We enjoyed having her come back and hope she took back to California some new memories too.