talk to one another, play around, nothing like that,” says Quinney. It was time to wash up and continue with the rosary until classes began. In designated classrooms, the national anthem would play and a prayer was said before class could begin. Aside from the cafeteria, this was the only other place that was co-ed. During recess the children were separated again, into boys and girls, and taken back to their respective
dayrooms. There they were given a snack of either a fruit or vegetable. Often times they were not allowed outside due to weather conditions and the nuns did not want the boys to dirty their clothes, thus they were also not allowed to play soccer, or horseplay with one another. So the boys invented games of their own. In one such game they would walk around in circles, and talk, usually about their dreams. “Sometimes there was only one large circle, other times there were many circles at once. But we all talked about dreams,” recalls Quinney. After recess students would return to their classrooms for another hour or two.
After their classroom session they would return to the dayroom to continue with the rosary while waiting for lunch. When lunch was ready, they would follow the same routine of travelling in lines of two, go to their designated seats, pray and eat. Following lunch they would return to class to finish for the day. When the school day was done, the boys would change from their school clothes to their everyday clothes, and they would have a snack before being sent outside to play. “This was when we were finally able to be little boys, play soccer, to get dirty,” says Quinney. Then they would be called back in to clean up, pick up with the rosary and have supper. After dinner students were given free time they were allowed to take a shower and watch television. “It was always whatever the nun wanted to watch, except Sundays when we got to watch Disney.” Finally, students would have to finish the rosary before going to bed, “it didn’t matter if we would be up late, the nuns would make sure we finished the rosary. We couldn’t go to sleep until we had done so.”
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