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Convent of the Good Shepherd, Memphis, TN

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Re: Convent of the Good Shepherd, Memphis, TN

peechelee  (View posts) Posted: 25 May 2012 10:20AM GMT
Classification: Biography
After talking more with my Grandmother,Margaret Fant, as prompted by your query (Thank you!), I've now learned that the non-delinquent side of the Chapel was called the "St. Joseph's" side. The delinquent side was called the "Magdalene" (as in Mary of Magdalene) side. My Grandmother lived in the St. Joseph's side from about 1941-1952.
She describes their daily schedule on the St. Joseph's side as follows:

Awake, make the bed,leave your dorm room in tidy condition, and get ready for Mass at approximately 5:30am, eat breakfast, complete daily chores (chores were in the big serving room, entertainment hall, or the one of the three segments of the dorms in the St. Joseph's side), school during the school year/ activities during the summer, lunch at 12:30pm, 30 minutes of recreation time, school/activity until about 3:30pm, bath, dinner, bed.

My Grandma said that there were typically 60-75 girls housed on the St.Joseph's side, and that side had exactly 6 tubs and 2 showers so that when it was bath time, the girls had to take turns with bathing. Grandma recalls that her closest friends that Convent were Ruth Davis, Margaret Yardborough, Geraldine Noonan, and Louise Sparks who was from the West Coast of Florida. Grandma recalls Veta Taylor who would dance and Calina Perkins who knew how to tap dance, and that these two girls would perform in short plays in the entertainment hall.

The Magdalene side did all of the cooking and laundry for all of the Convent. My Grandma said that her Mother taking her to Good Shepherd was "a blessing in disguise" because they were so very poor "who knows what would have happened to us if we hadn't gone to the Convent". She says that for her it was a blessing because she "came from nothing" (extreme poverty), but for the girls who were "more well off", the Convent may have been more bleak in comparison to their former lives at home.

My Grandmother said that "the Sisters were decent in the way they treated the children". The harshest discipline that my Grandma recalls receiving was having to sit on a chair every day for a week (with the exception of using the restroom, eating, sleeping) as a punishment for breaking the rules. She said sometimes girls would be smacked in the mouth for "mouthing off", but she did not witness any abusive mistreatment of the St. Joseph's side.

As for the Magdalene side, that is where my Great Aunt Nora was housed. My grandma said that the only thing she knows about Nora's life on the Magdalene side was that her job was embroidery and that the majority of her days were spent embroidering. Grandma says that Nora was very bitter for many years about their mother leaving them at the Convent, and that Nora does not like to talk about life there. My Great Aunt Nora is still alive, and I am tempted to gently ask for her phone number to ask more about the Magdalene side...
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SubjectAuthorDate Posted
melissahogan6... 22 Jun 2006 10:13PM GMT 
RegNMINiles 2 Jul 2006 4:36AM GMT 
melissahogan6... 3 Jul 2006 5:42PM GMT 
Patricia 2 Nov 2006 9:12PM GMT 
lfleming1231 6 Jul 2008 12:33AM GMT 
bluestar88_20... 23 Mar 2012 12:10AM GMT 
Peecher 22 May 2012 9:37PM GMT 
bluestar88_20... 22 May 2012 10:32PM GMT 
Peecher 25 May 2012 4:20PM GMT 
bluestar88_20... 25 May 2012 5:13PM GMT 
   
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