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Academy of Holy Names grads reunite

Photo by LENORA LAKE

Linda Ware Traviesa shows the yearbook and senior pictures of the 1962 graduating class of Academy of Holy Names.

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By LENORA LAKE

llake@tampatrib.com

Published: September 16, 2009

BAYSHORE - The dozen women came together to celebrate their 65{+t}{+h} birthdays -but they still envisioned each other in parochial school skirts, blouses and ties.

For a few hours on a recent Saturday, the 1962 graduates of the all-girls Academy of the Holy Names high school recalled class trips, plays, other students, teachers and moments they spent together about a half-century ago. Some were at the academy for 10 to 12 years, and others joined them in ninth grade, after completing Christ the King or another school.

Annette Oddo Lopez, who has retired after 31 years teaching, said, "It's just wonderful. We are the same. We haven't changed."

The years have brought some gray hair, some loss of spouses through death or divorce, and a lot of grandchildren. For some it has been life a few blocks from where they grew up in South Tampa; others have lived throughout the world.

Lopez, who the others refer to as "the actress in high school," said: "We might not have seen each other for a while, and then we are back at the same place we were."

The group met Sept. 5 at The Colonnade restaurant, near the school's Bayshore Boulevard campus, with some women coming from out of town. Five years ago they gathered for their 60{+t}{+h} birthdays and decided they should do it again this year. They already talk of their 70 birthday celebration.

Sandra Greco Diaz of South Tampa coordinated the luncheon, where the friends laughed, giggled and shared photo albums and scrapbooks full of programs and newsletters.

"We used to hang out here. It was a drive-in then with cherry Cokes; of course we had to come back here," said Diaz, also a retired teacher.

The Academy also was a boarding school then, with 22 of the 63 girls in the graduating class living on campus. Many of those were from other countries, Diaz recalled, saying they hear from them occasionally.

"Some of the classes never have gotten together," Diaz said, adding that Tampa area graduates try to see each other every few months.

Some married graduates from the all-boys Jesuit High School, sent their children to schools together and now have grandchildren in school together.

Others, like Pat Madden Brockway of Homosassa, said she and her Jesuit graduate husband have lived many places in and outside the United States. But the nurse said she never has forgotten her first day at the academy as a third-grade student.

"I was scared. Someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, "I'll be your friend." It was Isabel Lado of South Tampa, who was seated across from Brockway at the recent luncheon.

Lado understood the feeling of being new on campus. She came from Spain, couldn't speak English and didn't start school until she was 7 years old.

"We had a sense of family; we watched out for each other," said Lado, also a retired teacher.

Tessie Ferlita of South Tampa arrived wearing the school tie and her Social Security card.

The women said Ferlita, a retired social worker, was always the "funny one."

Ferlita said she is not surprised many of the graduates went into fields of teaching, health or social services. Those were traditional fields at that time, but she thought there was another reason.

"The school instilled in us that other people were important and we should do things to show them that we care," Ferlita said.

As for the ties, Brockway showed a photograph taken after school showing the girls wearing only skirts and blouses.

"The first thing we did when we got out of class was take off the tie. And when we graduated, we took of the shoes and they went right into the bay," Brockway said.

The shoes are gone, but the memories remain.

Diaz said: "When I pass it, I still say, 'That's my school.' I know how hard my father worked to send me there."

Tribune correspondent Lenora Lake can be reached at (813) 259-7600.

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