Category: Bill

The purpose of the seminary was to turn students into well educated priests.  To achieve that goal the seminarians were required to take their classes along with those of the Preparatory  students.  All the normal courses such as , English, math, history, languages (Latin and French or German), and science were offered.

My favorite class was physics.  Because  St. Vincent was a liberal arts school, he physics laboratory was not well equipped with modern instruments.  However, the physics teacher, Father Ulric, was quite innovative.  He knew how to teach a bunch of senior boys using everyday things.  The one example I remember most was a lesson in phase change and thermodynamics.  The goal of the experiment was to verify the number of calories ice transfers going from solid to liquid.

The experiment went like this. Each student was given a bottle of Rolling Rock beer.  A beaker was filled with the contents of a bottle of the Rolling Rock beer.  The weight and temperature of the beer was measured.  The beer was transferred to another beaker byway of a large funnel filled with ice.  The weight and temperature of the beer and ice were measured.  Father Ulric then asked us to calculate the results and turn them in to him.  When we were finished we were to empty the beakers and rinse them out.  Father Ulric then left the room while we calculated.  When he returned, the  calculations were done and the empty beakers were on the lab counter.

Obviously a win-win situation for 8 or 9  sixteen and seventeen year-olds

Last updated 27 February 2021

As I look back on my elementary school years, I was both smart and gullible.  I was susceptible to the suggestion that I was destined to be a priest. At  13 I knew what my future was going to be!  Thus, I applied and was accepted to the seminary at St. Vincent Scholasticate in Latrobe. Some 45 miles from home.  The Scholasticate was run by the Benedictines at the Saint Vincent Monastery.  The campus consisted of the monastery, a college and a high school, along with all the usual accoutrements of a religious and educational enclave.  The high school was also divided into separate divisions where students attended the same classes.  Some students of the Preparatory School lived off campus and some in the dormitories. About 1200 boys attended the prep school.  The college had both secular and religious students,seminarians, who attended classes together.  Not all seminarians were intending to be Benedictine priests.

Except for the time in and between classes, there was little mingling between the two student bodies. The Scholasticates shared an area of the monastery set aside for them. The Scholasticates, referred to by many as “Skillies”, were controlled and segregated from the general community.  Skillies had their own study halls, dormitories and dining hall.  We did have the same dress code as the preparatory school, coats and ties. 

In my last year, there were 24 other high school students.  There were three study halls, one for freshmen and sophomores, one for juniors and seniors, and one for the freshmen and sophomore collegians.    The approximately 20 desks in the high school study halls were assigned to the students at the beginning of the school year.  The college study hall was smaller and probably had 10 to 15 seats.  During study hall, only study was permitted.  Study hall hours were from 4:00 to 5:00 PM and 7:00 to 9:00 PM Sunday through Thursday.  I do not recall the hours on the weekends. There was always a study hall  proctor.  The proctor had taken temporary vows and wore the habit of the Novitiate and was a college junior or senior.  Because I usually finished my homework in short order, on a few occasions I was caught reading a book that did not qualify for study.  I don’t remember the punishment, but I’m sure it was minor, such as having to write a 1,000 word essay on the book I was surreptitiously reading. 

There were two dormitories, a large open bay for the high school students and a smaller one for the freshmen and sophomore collegians.  The day started with a 5:30 AM lights-on and an announcement that it was time to get moving.  We’d file into the communal bathrooms, washed our faces and hands, brushed our teeth, donned our clothes.  Showers were availabe only once a week of Friday or Saturday.

By 6 AM we were headed out the door on our way to the chapel.  At the chapel, the Matins (morning prayers) were said and a Mass was held.  From there we walked, always in silence honoring the “Silentia Magnum” signs, through the monastery halls toward the Scholasticate’s refectory for breakfast.

The entire group of Scholasticates and  its staff  had the refectory to itself.  The meals were prepared by Benedictine nuns who had come from Germany many years earlier.  When referring to the nuns, their German title “Svester” was used.  Actually, for institutional food the meals were pretty good.  We were served the same food as the monks and priests who lived and taught at the college and high school.  

The Scholasticate had an additional set of rules governing conduct.  As I recall, there were 12 rules; two of them had a long lasting effect on my life.  The first of those rules stated that smoking was not permitted for students under the age of 16.  Of course most students headed to the bookstore to buy their first pack of cigarettes.  On our lunch break on school days, we would exercise by walking around in the cemetery.  Those of smoking age would, of course, take a smoke break.  The smoking habit stayed with me until I gave it up in 1969.  

The other rule forbade students from leaving the campus without permission.  It was the violation of that rule that ended my seminary days. 

Last updated  February 28, 2021

This Post contains short bits of information that can be added to whenever a new  rememberance pops into your mind.  Some of the things you read here would be unheard of today.

Judi.  Bill was in the Air Force when he and Judi married and they moved to New York to finish out his language school.  When school was over, Bill was assigned to Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas for what was supposed a four to six weeks of training followed by an assignment to Germany.  Because the  training was to be of short duration, Judi stayed behind.  Because of a bureaucratic problem, after about 6 weeks, the short tour was converted to an “indefinite” tour.  Judi then joined Bill in Texas.  During that six week interim Judi would visit the Hartmann house on the weekend for a visit. Among other things, she would put rollers in Mom’s hair.  She and Linda also spread the outrageous rumor that Judi gave Linda a bath in the sink.  Linda was 12 at the time.

School.   Billy, like his older siblings, was given the privilege to walk the half mile to East Street School to go to kindergarten.  He found out later that he had the same teacher, Mrs Meers, as his wife Judi had at Schiller School.

In the tradition of his father and his older brothers he went to St. Boniface School for grades one through eight.  He also had Sister Otillia as one of his teachers.  Yes, she was one of dad’s teachers as well.  When the boys who went to St. Boniface were in the sixth(?)grade, they were enrolled in a once-a-week afternoon shop class at Latimer high school. As w look back on his elementary school years, he was both smart and gullible.  He was susceptible to the suggestion that he was destined to be a priest. At  13 he knew what his future was going to be!  Thus, he applied and was accepted to the seminary at St. Vincent Scholasticate in Latrobe. Some 45 miles from home.   He boarded there except for major holidays and summer vacation. He graduated from high school in June of 1957 and started college in September.  How that ended is in another post.

From the 1957 Chimes Yearbook

 

 

The page below lists all the high school students in the Scholasticate for the 1956-57 school year.  Like most other activities, all skillies had to participate,

The photo below shows all the honor students from the class of ’57

 

Social Activities.There was the standard unsupervised kid stuff, such as playing ball in the school yard, riding bicycles, and just hanging around with the neighborhood kids.  In the summer he would ride his bike and sometimes hitchhike the eleven miles to go swimming in the North Park pool.

Sarah Heinz House and the Salvation Army both had after school and weekend activities at their respective club houses in which Billy participated.  Although Sarah Heinz house flooded a field in winter for ice skating, because he had no skates, he watched but did not participate.

During several of the summer vacations he and his brothers were able to attend a boys’ camp sponsored by the Pittsburgh diocese. Camp O’Connell was either free or very cheap and lasted 10 days.

Billy was a Boy Scout for about two or three years.  He earned a number of merit badges and reached First Class Scout.  His Scouting career ended when he went off to St. Vincent.

 

Work.  Like his brothers before him, he had summer jobs when he was in highschool. He was a clerk in Isaly’s dairy when he was 16, and worked for a printing company, the Caslon Press, as a helper in the shipping department when he was 17.

Bill’s first job after the seminary was at Crandall, McKenzie and Henderson rug cleaning company.  He had two basic functions: rolling and wrapping paper around cleaned rugs and nailing rugs to the floor in the drying room so that they could be starched.

The next job was working at Washington Trust Bank as the mail teller and courier.  Everyday he walked the cancelled checks from the previous day to the Federal Reserve Bank about a mile away.  He was also on call to deliver pocket cash to certain big depositors.

But Dad found him a job in J&L’s galvanizing plant, earning $2.65 an hour, up from his $1.00 per hour in the bank.  The probationary job lasted 59 days, one day short of becoming a permanent union employee. He was working the min shift and was responsible for putting steel bands around stacks of steel plates that were delivered by crane.  He had 15 minutes or more of down time from the time the crane came to take away the lift and returned with a fresh stack.  He decided to take a book with him to read during the down time.  The foreman saw him and had him terminated.

Then came a few weeks of unemployment and single day jobs.  He made a wise choice and joined the Air Force.

Last updated January 24, 2021

Bill had just started his second semester of college. He had been at St. Vincent for four and a half years, and

it was his 18th birthday when he went into Father Aiden’s, the Director,  office to get permission to go into town to register for the draft.  Bill was lectured on the importance of following the rules, then informed that he was a ring leader coercing others into violating the rules.

The lecture ended with “You will leave here by noon tomorrow”.

The rule: Students will not leave the campus without approval.  Bill and several of his classmates had walked the train tracks into town to see a movie on two different Saturday nights.  You could say that Bill was given permission to leave the campus he asked for, but not to return. The movies were “Don’t Go Near the Water” and “Les Girls”.