A SHOW OF FAITH AT MISSION HIGH
Sister Patrice leaves inspiring legacy
When Sister Patrice Garrity died last week at 88 down in Connecticut where she lived with other retired nuns, her colleagues put together a biography that simply noted she had been an educator in Boston.
That was not incorrect, but it was sure incomplete, because the essence of this magnificent life was not in what the summary said, but rather in what it failed to note.
Voted the prettiest girl in the class of 1946 at Mission High in Roxbury, Marie Garrity reveled in life upon Mission Hill back when the passion play “Pilate’s Daughter” packed the pews at Easter, and buses lined Tremont Street all the way down to Roxbury Crossing as parishioners jammed novenas every Wednesday.
“Life was so simple back then,” she recalled. “We were never hit with the stuff kids are hit with today. I remember football games and dances and how the boys and girls would be sent in different directions at dismissal time. Then we’d all meet up at The Switch, which is what we called Brigham Circle.”
But she would feel a powerful call to religious life, so one night she told her parents of her heart’s desire and it would always move her to recall the day she became a novice and told her father Patrick, a Boston cop from Ireland, that she had chosen the name Patrice in his honor.
“It was the first time they saw me in a habit and my father sat there with tears streaming down his face. I’ve always cherished that memory.”
But Sister Patrice was not called to preside over glory days, though she certainly had glorious memories.
Times were changing however, and by 1990, while she was serving her alma mater as its principal, everyone knew Mission High was existing on borrowed time; its long, long season of nurturing the kids of Mission Hill was coming to an end as families vacated the neighborhood.
The school would experience a last poignant gasp when its basketball team, garbed in mismatched, disheveled uniforms, won the EMass Division 3 championship at the Garden.
Its pregame talk was delivered by its principal.
“All the world sees when it sees a group of black kids is trouble,” she said. “It sees a group of you and wants to walk away. So what a wonderful opportunity you’ve been given. Remember the Gospel story of how people poked fun at the Lord? Remember how they asked, ‘What good could possibly come from Nazareth?’
“Well, now it’s, ‘What good could possibly come from Roxbury?’ So here’s a chance to show the world the other side of that coin it sees whenever it picks up a newspaper. If you’ll just take the gifts you’ve been given and work as hard as you possibly can with them, the angels couldn’t do better. Look where those gifts have brought us today.”
What a teacher she was. What an encourager she was. What a model of vibrant faith she was.
How fitting that Mission’s swan song included a miraculous touch.
Moments before the final pep rally, a surprise visitor showed up from the class of 1943. His name was Reuben O’Brien.
“He wanted to say a few words to the kids,” Sister Patrice recalled. “And I’m thinking, ‘Oh no, they’ll never listen to him.’ You know how kids are. They were already bouncing off the walls.
“Well, he gets up there and starts telling them how he was Mission High’s first male cheerleader. Then he jumps onto this little platform and says, ‘OK, I’m going to teach you a couple of cheers,’ and I’m praying, ‘Please, Lord, this is not going to work; don’t let them start yawning at him.’
“The next thing I know, they’re roaring. He tells them, ‘Now here’s how we do the locomotive.’ He stoops way down, and his arm starts rolling, and he says, ‘When my arm starts going faster, pick it up, OK?’ I can’t believe what I’m seeing. They’re all on their feet, doing the locomotive with this little man from the class of 1943!”
But while reality could be temporarily ignored, it could not be denied.
“It’s time for all of us to begin letting go,” Sister Patrice said. “It’s time to start thinking about saying goodbye.”
In 1996, the golden reunion of her class, she offered this remembrance:
“It was a heartbreaking period of time to see Mission High close. It still is. But I’m glad I was the one who locked it in January 1992 because I know it was done by someone who loved that place.”
This morning, the School Sisters of Notre Dame are going to bury that prettiest girl from the class of 1946.
Goodbye, good friend, and God bless.