Dear St. Mary's Alumni! !

I loved my twelve years at St. Mary's. I remember one real special memory of eating supper as a guest of Karen Haverkamp (I think that is the last name). Her father was the janitor of the school, and they had a residence up on the top floor. I remember thinking how wonderful it must be to have such a huge house. When I close my eyes, I can still see the flames shooting into the heavens the night it started on fire. Our whole family stood in the car lot outside of the church and held each other as my dad lead Ceal, Chuck, Jerry, Mary, Mom and myself in prayer for the safety of the fire fighters.

My fondest memory… Julie Becker and I (Julie Dziowgo) were serving detention and Sr. Carroll was the person "watching" us. We were the only two there that day. Advent was just around the corner and Sr. Carroll gave Julie and I a assignment. She gave us a dollar and she sent us on our way to Devoy Drug store to get the four taper candles needed to make the Advent Wreath for the church. Well, Julie and I walked to Devoy Drug, and Mr. Devoy helped us chose three purple and one pink tapered candles, placed them in a sack, he would not take the money and sent us on our way. Instead, we went "window shopping" right next door. After about 15 minutes of looking, Mr. Devoy came out and stated, "Sr. Carroll just called, and wanted to know if we had been there and that she was waiting for us….." eek, we high tailed it back to St. Mary's as fast as we could. The roads and sidewalks were a bit slick, and we were holding on to each other as it had started to blizzard. We slipped on the ice and down we went…. Candles and all! We brushed the snow off and kept a fast pace to get back to Sr. Carroll who was standing at the door of the high school arms folded and a stern look on her face. The next day, Sr. Carroll met us at the church to design and put together the Advent Wreath. When we opened up the sack with the candles, we noted that three of the candles had broken from our spill the day before. We told Sister of our plight, About five minutes later, she returned with pine limbs and wires to form the wreath. Mr. Devoy who learned of our fall, came to Church with four big beautiful candles to complete the advent wreath. On the first Sunday of Advent, Sr. Carroll had Julie and I light the first Candles. I remember too, the biggest hug she gave me at graduation. Sister did so much for me as a teenager.

Sincerely

Julie Dziowgo Wollschlager

Julie Dziowgo Wollschlager Class of 1976

St. Mary's High School, O'neill, Nebraska