The final classes at Academy of Our Lady, a Catholic girls’ high school at 95th Street and Throop Avenue in Chicago, were in 1999, but the school’s legacy lives on in its graduates.
The school’s thriving Alumnae Association and well-attended annual reunions have become a testament to how well-loved the school was by many of its students.
The group is planning its first reunion since 2019, a hiatus caused by the pandemic, on Oct. 15 at the Oak Lawn Hilton. Otherwise an annual event, the reunion is open to all graduates of the school, which also was known as Longwood Academy.
Marge Carroll, who graduated in 1954, has been active with the Alumnae Association since the 1960s and now is president. She said people enjoy reminiscing about their school days at the reunions, but also are interested in current happenings.
“People made lifelong friendships, and that is something we are happy about. We get a very good turn-out, especially from the 50-year reunion class. Those who come have a good time. We get nostalgic about our own school experiences, but are also very much interested in what each other is into now,” said Carroll, who lives in Oak Lawn and enjoyed a career in journalism, including writing for newspapers such as the Chicago American, baiduhai the Daily Southtown, then known as the Southtown Economist.
Carroll said even those who are hesitant to come to Academy of Our Lady reunions end up having a good time.
“I suppose that not everyone had a great time in high school, but I did,” she said. “I had a very good experience at AOL, as did many other students, so it is always just good to go back to the reunions and get reacquainted with the girls I went to school with.
“We’ve always been ‘the girls,’ no matter what.”
Mary Therese Burke, a graphic designer who lives in Chicago’s West Beverly neighborhood, is one of the 1972 graduates who is looking forward to celebrating her 50th anniversary of graduating.
“My best friends are my high school friends and we have been talking about this for a long time,” she said. “The majority of us did not hang out together in high school, but in the last 10 years or so we’ve gotten back together and formed a strong bond.
“We can’t put on airs, we all knew each other and what things were like back then,” laughed Burke.
Members of the class of 1972 even held a collective 65th birthday party for themselves a few years ago, and are planning to do the same for their 70th birthdays.
The reunion includes a daytime tour of the campus, which is now the Chicago International Charter School. The tour starts with a prayer service at the Lourdes Grotto which still stands on the grounds and is followed by visits to some of the historic buildings, where the alumnae delight in remembering their theater performances in the auditorium, where they sat in the cafeteria for lunch, and checking books out of the library.
Academy of Our Lady first opened in 1875 as a coed school, then became a girls’ school that took boarding students until 1935. Under the direction of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, a grade school as well as the high school operated until 1950.
Both Carroll and Burke are glad the campus continues to be used as a school, and said keeping the religious symbols of the grotto and the Blessed Mother statue over the main entrance preserves and honors the history of the school.
Burke is looking forward to revisiting the campus.
“To be honest, I didn’t want to go to Longwood Academy, I wanted to go to Mother McAuley with my friends, but my father, a high school principal, had a lot of respect for the School Sisters of Notre Dame,” she said.
“I fell in love with the school within two weeks. The campus was breathtakingly beautiful, with the arboretum, the weeping willows, the grotto, the older buildings. I loved every day there. There was so much turmoil going on in the world in the early 1970s, but walking through those gates gave me the feeling I was in the midst of a calm. It will be good to walk through the halls again.”
Along with special recognition for the class of 1972, the reunion will also mark the delayed 50th anniversaries of the classes of 1970 and ’71.
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“We don’t have a formal evening program because the attendees enjoy visiting,” Carroll said. “We always recognize the person who traveled the farthest for the reunion, and so far, we have someone coming from Germany. We will have musical entertainment later in the evening and we hope people will get up and dance.” said Carroll.
The 2019 reunion drew three hundred people, and the planners are hoping for a good turnout again. According to Burke, over 70 of the 327 graduates from 1972 have sent in reservations so far, and they are hoping at least 100 will attend.
“We are grateful for the loyalty that has been shown over the years and look forward to seeing each and every one who comes to the reunion,” Carroll said.
More information about the reunion is at www.AOLAlumnae.org.
Carol Flynn is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.