A series of emails has resulted in my inviting Joan to contribute to this blog. Here are some snippets from her communications:Having worked on the yearbook in 1967-8-9 I wanted to type STUFF on many of these for Ken.
If I can find Sister Clare (Mary Buckley's email at Morrow Park and Sister Conrad's email as well ) I'll forward those ones too. I saw them both last summer and Sister Conrad told me she was 77 then. Ruth Nicholls would get a kick out of the Wayne & Anne Stovell shot. This (&*^&% site could keep me busy for hours. I graduated in 1969.
Ken should know that it was Linda LaPorte who died at the age of 42 when I was at Austin in 1995 after over 20 years of medical mismanagement who called the yearbook HERITAGE when she was asst. editor in her Gr. 11 year and then editor in her Gr. 12 year.
She graduated in 1969 from Grade 12 to go on to nursing at Hotel Dieu in Kingston. Linda was an exceptional nursing student but never graduated due to illness/hospitalizations/nursing home residency.
Seeing her with brain damage was dreadful. Doctors overdosed her on cobalt in the early 1970's. Linda's treasure, a Grade 12 yearbook (loaded with OCHS autographs), was lost in June 1969. YEARS later when we did the thank you event to Sisters of St. Joseph and the Grey Nuns I was perusing yearbooks for a slide show. I hoped to find a photo of each nun who had worked at either highschool (OCHS/Dwyer & Denis O'Connor)....
One of the yearbooks in the box from Dwyer's was Linda's. The hair on my arms stood up. I had a box of yearbooks in my coop ed office at St. Mary's in Pickering. Jim McGeown had given them to me...... 25 years later the book came to me (her best friend) and was on display at her wake in Oshawa when she died. This "coincidence" story was published in the Toronto Star in George Gamster's column years later and won me $50. which I put into the Linda LaPorte Memorial Award at Dwyer which I created when she died. It went to some student who made an amazing contribution to yearbook work.
Linda is buried at Resurrection Cemetery in Whitby near Anne Marie Kraemer, yearbook editor at OCHS after Linda. Anne Marie died from cancer.Someday I'll be near them both on the cremation wall.
Thanks for forwarding this. I think the nun who got her needle was a librarian but then again if I saw her face front (instead of profile) it MAY have been Sister Adelarde who tried to teach us Latin in Gr. 12 / 13. She had trouble keeping the straight pin in place on the crown of her habit and it would cause the veil to fall down.
OCHS was my home away from home for 5 years so I have lots of warm fuzzy memories from that time. I was Bob's campaign manager when he first ran for Student Council and he got measles on me, got defeated because no one had seen the "candidate". We got to work together for a few years at Austin before I retired which was special. He helped me win a grievance once too. I can add info to some of these photos for sure.
Do you go on and delete things if they are tooooo wordy or personal?
Glad you and Bob connected in the Bahamas. It is a small world! I'll get back to this when i can. If only you'd had digital back then!?!?! You'd have thousands of images to go through!
I'll leave Joan to add more identifying details if she wishes. The answer to your question is yes.
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