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Saint Patrick's School - Kankakee Adrienne Marquis Class of 1956

In 1921 the cornerstone was laid for St. Patrick High School, nearly 30 years after the founding of Parish in Kankakee. In the fall of 1922, Father Henry M. Shea opened the parish high school. Under the direction of the Sisters of Loretto at the Foot of the Cross, classes were conducted in the grade school building until the final phase of the high school building was completed. St. Patrick High School, the only Catholic co-educational high school in this area, was formally dedicated on November 12, 1923.

The first graduates in 1925 were all commercial students. By 1926, there were 112 students enrolled in both business and academic courses. In 1931 the Clerics of St. Viator assumed charge of St. Patrick Parish, and for 25 years the Viatorians and Sisters of Loretto educated students at the school on Hickory St. in Kankakee.

By the early fifties, the school was bulging with more than 300 students. In February, 1956, the school moved into the new, modern, round, glass facility on Brookmont Blvd. No longer a parish school, the name was changed to St. Patrick Central, and served students from sixteen parishes in the Kankakee area.

I attended Saint Patricks school for twelve years and was a member of the last graduating class in 1956. During the last half of my Senior year, we moved from Saint Patricks on Hickory Street to Saint Patricks Central on Brookmount Blvd. Today the school is called Bishop McNamara. Anyway, I graduated from the 8th grade in 1952 and from High School in 1956. One of my memories from High School is that I had an older brother Ralph who was a year ahead of me. At the beginning of every year, the Nuns would ask me if I was Ralph's sister. After I said yes, they moved me to the front of the class. 

On August 12, 2006, the Class of 1956 of St. Patricks Central High School held it's 50th class reunion. On Friday evening we had a social hour and I had a wonderful time talking with fellow classmates. You don't see this very often today, but there were either 11 or 12 of us that attended St. Pats from the 1st grade through the 12th grade. We went to Mass on Saturday evening and then held our celebration at the Kankakee Country Club. The interesting thing was that members from the Class of 46 were on the left side of Church. The Priest said, "if we wanted to know what we would look like in ten years, look to our left". Adrienne Marquis - 1956

Saint Patrick's Central High School Class of 1956

Click here to view a slide show from the Class of 1956.

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