1945 - 46
Class Leaders
Senior Class Officers: John Morrissey, president
Other class officers: xxx
During the Summer
On June 18, the Intermountain Catholic newspaper said eight Judge graduates had died in the war.
Cpl. Edward C. McChrystal died in January on the German frontier. He was the son of physician Alexander McChrystal and grandson of mining developer John McChrystal.
2nd Lieutenant Robert J. Scarborough was killed Jan. 23, 1945 when his plane crashed in England.
1st Lt. James Allen Riley, Class of 1941, died in an air crash delivering supplies to soldiers in northern Italy. He had been student body president his senior year.
Lt. Leo Shields, Class of 1932, a General Excellence Award winner who later got his doctorate at Notre Dame, was killed in Brittany sometime between July 16 and July 20, 1944.
Patrick Maher, Class of 1937
Paul Purcell, Class of 1936
Staff Sgt. Jack Caulfield Haire, Class of 1942, was killed in the European theatre. He had gone to Judge since kindergarten and was mustered into the service in December, 1942 as a radio gunner. “Gifted with an engaging personality, sincere and devout in his faith.” His brother, Curtis, was a junior at Judge. A requiem Mass was offered in Kearney Hall on April 28.
Sgt. William W. Carter, Class of 1940, also was reported missing in action over France. The son of the custodians of the Knights of Columbus clubhouse, he was married and had flown nearly 25 missions, and was “anticipating his well-earned furlough,” he said in a letter written on the eve of his 23rd birthday.
The Intermountain Catholic published a letter in February, 1945 that Cpl. McChrystal had written his family from “somewhere in Italy” in October, 1943. McChrystal had mailed the letter to Msgr. Patrick Kennedy, rector of the Cathedral of the Madeleine, asking the priest to hold onto it for him in case he did not return from the war. It said:
“This letter is partly a thank-you note for a lifetime of good things you have given me. Ever since basic training I intended to write you these lines someday. … I hope you won’t think me sentimental but when you begin to face the basic things in life, you don’t mind speaking your mind. Over here we must necessarily concern ourselves with many things we formerly accepted practically unconsciously. Keeping clean, eating, sleeping – all these are major events now. But – most of all – praying, keeping close to God, and home are the ‘precious thoughts’ when we are able to have them. Well, one thing I’m particularly grateful for is the advantage of a Catholic college education. Those years you gave me in Portland were happy ones. They helped, I’m sure, to provide for me a fuller view of life and to instill an appreciation for the good and the noble. They gave me my true friends, too. Then, I want to thank you for all those thousands and thousands of little things which really make up life – when you, Dad, used to wait for us in the morning to take us to school at Judge and wait again after school; and when you, Mom, who would sit up at night until all of us were in bed. We thought you were strict all right, but we would have been disappointed if you went to bed. You see, these are the nice little things you were doing for us right along. Well, though I would never be capable of full payment, I was hoping to do something for you someday. I had hoped to come back and do it at home, but God has other plans, you see. I have always looked at the matter in this way: All of us have two homes – that very dear one back in America and that never-ending one in heaven. Well, perhaps I’m being a bit vain, but now that I did not get back to my U.S. home, I hope to be on my way, at least, to the home in heaven. So when I arrive there and if you are still on earth, I want you to know that I will be praying and waiting for you and for Sarah Helen and Bill and all the rest at home and elsewhere. Please don’t have any regrets, for, as someone has said, ‘this war is bigger than any one person.’ Despite the grumbling, mistakes and disappointments, we know that we’re fighting for what is right and noble – we’re fighting for a good America, for home. Everybody must do his part. For many of us, that part may seem insignificant, but the fact we’re doing all we can makes it a lofty effort. I want to believe that because I did my bit, America is a better land, home is still home back there, and people are happier. God Bless you and goodbye for now. Your loving son, Edward.”
When the war in Europe ended, the Intermountain Catholic noted that “V-E day was observed by the school on Friday, May 11, in view of the advantage of rounding out the weekend introduced by the Ascension Thursday. At the time of the official proclamation, appropriate exercises of thanksgiving were held in the school auditorium.”
In late August, Utah Catholics welcomed home Sgt. Robert Thompson, Class of 1931, who had received a Purple Heart, the Bronze Star and the Combat Infantryman’s Badge for his actions in Italy in the fall of 1944. A Fifth Army news release heralded Thompson’s bravery in fighting around Bologna. “When all the officers and non-coms were wounded, Thompson took charge of the company, reorganized it, and led the outfit in an attack in which the objective was seized. Thompson was slightly wounded three days later as he led the company through a dense fog. He sought and killed the sniper and refused to be evacuated until the following day, when his company was relieved. . . . His acceptance and courageous follow-through of his responsibility exemplify the great, indomitable American will to win.”
The Year
Faculty: Sr. Veronique became principal. She had been Mother Provincial of the Western Province of the Sisters of the Holy Cross. Fr. Robert Dwyer, superintendent of schools; Fr. James Kenny became the third priest to help the Sisters of the Holy Cross to run Judge, hired as a part-time instructor. Thomas E. Carey succeeded James Powers as athletic director. He was a Regis College graduate out of Chicago.
The Judge school building was strained by 550 students, up from 460 the previous year, illustrating “sharply the need of increased educational facilities … Scores of non-Catholic applicants for admission were necessarily rejected on the principle that the school’s first obligation is to members of the faith.” The freshman class was the largest ever.
A Mass celebrated by Fr. Robert Dwyer marked the school’s silver jubilee. Bishop Duane Hunt also addressed the faculty and student body during the convocation.
Girls Sodality officers were Evelyn Maher, prefect; Donna Bernardi, assistant prefect; Frances Bertagnole, secretary; and Dorothy Maher, treasurer. The committee heads were Joan Allen, Mary Moran, Margaret Kingston, Patricia Maher, Julia Maher and Nadine McInerney.
Members of the speech department, directed by Sr. Frances James, acted out a dramatic episode from the life of Cardinal John Henry Newman on the centennial of his 1845 birth. Newman was the highest-ranking Episcopal church member in North America when he switched religions and became a Catholic.
Word arrived that 1927 Judge graduate William McDougall was safe in Sumatra. He was a United Press International reporter in southeast Asia and was presumed to be a prisoner of war after the Japanese took over Java. “Hello, mom. Gee, it’s good to see you,” he said upon landing at Hill Air Force Base. McDougall was on a Dutch ship attacked and sunk by Japanese dive bombers. He spent five hours in the water before being rescued by a lifeboat and spending three weeks hiding in the Sumatran jungle before his capture. He returned home 30 pounds underweight. In 1938, McDougall had worked at The Salt Lake Tribune. He joined United Press International and was assigned to Shanghai, China shortly before war erupted. McDougall became a priest in 1952 and was Cathedral of the Madeleine rector from 1960-81.
“I really wanted to arrive in the daytime so I could take a look at these mountains I’ve been wanting to see for so long, but I guess I’ll have plenty of time for that now that I’m home,” he told The Tribune after landing on the evening of Nov. 16, 1945. “I’m not planning on much of anything other than just taking it easy and stuffing myself on Mom’s cooking.” The Tribune reported he was confined to quarters in Shanghai on Dec. 8, 1941 when the Japanese took over. But he and another war correspondent, Robert P. Martin, escaped with help from Chinese guerillas. From Chungking they flew to Batavia, where they covered the fighting for UPI. Leaving there, Bill boarded a Dutch ship and on the morning of March 7, 1942, the ship was attacked by seven Japanese dive bombers, machine guns blazing. After spending five hours in the water, McDougall was picked up by a lifeboat. Six days later, he reached South Sumatra and spent three weeks walking along the coast and living in the jungle before he was picked up by a Japanese patrol. He was taken to Palembang, Sumatra, where he spent nine months in a native jail. Transferred later to various prison camps, he finally wound up in a prison camp on the Java coast in February, 1945. McDougall remained there until liberated Sept. 20.
A Nov. 18, 1945 Intermountain Catholic article focused on McDougall’s description of the heroism of Dutch missionary priests, from the Congregation of the Sacred Heart, in South Sumatra. At Palembang, there were 21 priests and 14 brothers of the congregation’s mission, led by the Most Rev. J. M. Mekkleholt, and 14 priests and 15 brothers of the Banka mission under Bishop Bouma of Pangkal Penang. By August 1945, Bishop Bouma and nine of his priests and eight brothers were dead. Mekkleholt survived but nine of his priests didn’t. “By rare good fortune he was able to make secret caches of his diaries and special papers, all of which he has gathered and sent home. When published they should document a terrible phase of Japanese brutality. No less, however, will they document the resourcefulness of the internees and the entire devotion of the Catholic missionaries to their charges.”
As World War II drew to a close, Judge students raised $1,821 from war stamp sales, four times the quota assigned to the school. Sr. Claire Antoine oversaw the effort.
Key performers in the Christmas Program provided for all Judge students were grammar school students Richard Allam, Gene Donnelly, Bill Raterman, Arthur Fish, James McNamara, Bill Allen, Roger McDonough, Don Cecala, Kelly Hagerty and Marlene Moran.
An “Inquiring Editor” news forum sponsored by the Salt Lake Telegram pitted five Judge boys – Norman Harmon, Thomas Cashman, William Gramer, William Brennan and Jay Murray Mooney (alternate) – against Judge girls Bernice Maher, Grace Marie Young, Josephine Malouf, Ruth Lecklider and Margaret Ann Ward (alternate). The girls “nosed ahead’ to win.
The Christmas recital by 45 music students began with performances by Helen Frances Welsh, Constance Smith and Beatrice Downing and ended with pieces by Mary Deason, Julie Anne Duncombe and Patricia Coveny.
Pianists Julie Anne Duncombe and Patricia Coveny performed along with the Judge Glee Club, under director Sr. Miriam Rose, when Mother Mary Agnes, provincial of the Holy Cross Sisters in Utah, California and Idaho, visited the Judge convent of sisters in the order.
A typing test conducted by Sr. Jose Maria established second-year students Bernice Maher, Joan Allen, Grace Young, Josephine Malouf and Donna Bernardi as the school’s most accurate typists with speed. Fast first-year typists were Bill Gramer, Gloria Tappero, Joan Kluge, Jack O’Halloran, Mary Beth Middendorf, Eleanora Tappero, Mary Leenette Moran, Margaret Kingston, Joan Paulus, Alberta Esta and Sue Bero.
The Senior Recital in the auditorium featured performances by Mary Elizabeth Deason (on piano and harp), Colleen Hamilton, Patricia O’Meara, Marilyn Smith, Julie Anne Duncombe and Patricia Coveny, along with the six boys and 29 girls in the Glee Club.
Girls in the Glee Club were Mary Jane Agnew, Barbara Jean Allen, Leona Allen, Renee Anderson, Kathryn Clark, Patricia Coveny, Ruth Daily, Mary Deason, Julie Anne Duncombe, Imogen Griffin, Colleen Hamilton, Dorothy Hannon, Genevieve Howa, Colleen Janny, Rita Keiser, Mary McKenna, Edna Malouf, Patricia O’Meara, Mary Page, Roselyn Raleigh, Katherine Reeves, Pauline Reeves, Florence Sanchez, Anna Skizas, Marilyn Smith, Kathleen Sullivan, Eleanora Tappero, Gloria Tappero and Frances Waters.
The Boys Glee Club featured James Cronin, Albert Esta, Frank Folger, Joseph Hauzen, Jack O’Halloran and Charles Perella.
William Brennan, Norman Harmon and Bernice Maher won the annual Oratorical Contest. Also competing were Nadine McInerney, Tom Cashman and Josephine Malouf.
James Trainer was in charge of preparations for the Junior Prom, held May 7 at the Hotel Utah. He was helped by Mary Beth Middendorf, Charles O’Sullivan, Leona Allen and James Morrissey.
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the establishment of Judge as a grammar and high school, Bishop Duane Hunt sang a Solemn Mass in the school auditorium on the morning of June 6. The PTA sponsored an evening reception to mark the creation of a school by Bishop Joseph Glass in September, 1920. Its first eighth grade class graduated in 1921. In subsequent years, high school grades were added “until the complete curriculum had been incorporated.” Speakers heralding Judge Memorial’s subsequent growth were Fr. Robert Dwyer, Catholic schools superintendent; Paul Sullivan, Mrs. Fred Davidson, Rev. William Vaughan, Principal Sr. Veronique and Bishop Hunt. Graduating seniors Tom Hurley and Nadine McInerney provided background assistance to the honored guests.
Plays
“Headed for Eden,” starring Joan Allen, Grace Marie Young, James Park, Evelyn Maher, Mary Sweeney, Josephine Malouf, Frances Bertagnole, Bernice Maher, Nadine McInerney, Tom Cashman, Donna Bernardi, Tom Hurley, Dorothy Maher, James Muth, Norman Harmon, Bill Brennan and Bill Gramer.
Sports
A drive was initiated to develop a football stadium and an outdoor physical education facility.
Tom Carey took over the football and basketball programs after graduating from Regis College in Denver, where he lettered three times in football, basketball and baseball. He lasted one year, before becoming administrator of the new St. Benedict’s Hospital in Ogden. Carey’s football team went 2-3 with a 14-man roster. His basketball team was 3-10.
Graduation
31 graduates (14 boys/17 girls) on June 9 at the Cathedral of the Madeleine. General Excellence Award: Bernice Maher; Holy Cross scholarship to St. Mary’s of the Wasatch College and the Bishop Glass Memorial Award: Bernice Maher; McGean Award for athletics: Jay Murray Mooney; McHugh Memorial Award for excellence in Christian doctrine: Norman Harmon; Cosgriff Scholarship to St. Mary’s-of-the-Wasatch: Grace Marie Young; Science Award: Thomas Hurley.
The graduates were Joan Allen, Donna Bernardi, Frances Bertagnole, Mary Colette Bolte, William Brennan, Donna Cameron, Thomas Cashman, Margaret Cuburu, Elizabeth Farren, William Gramer, Richard Griffin, Norman Harmon, Thomas Hurley, Paul Kingston, Arthur Lepore, Ruth Lecklider, Frank McCabe, Nadine McInerney, Bernice Maher, Dorothy Maher, Evelyn Maher, Josephine Malouf, Jay Mooney, James Muth, Richard O’Sullivan, James Park, James Pollock, Frances Stimatz, Mary Sweeney, Margaret Ann Ward and Grace Young.
Graduate Norman Harmon went on to win a Fulbright scholarship to study physics in Paris and other parts of France. He also graduated from St. Mary’s University in California and then taught at Washington University in St. Louis. Classmate Bill Brennan went on to attend St. Mary’s University in California, where he became general manager of the school’s first radio station; six years after graduating from Judge, Bernice Maher married Jay Mooney. They were parents of five; Joan Allen entered the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Cross convent in Notre Dame, Ind. the following February, taking the name Sr. Mary Christeta.
Alumni
Edward Deason received the Silver Star in a ceremony at Fort Douglas for his gallantry in action in the China theater of the war.
