CONWAY — Sitting in a room of Helen Moix Kordsmeier's Conway home June 9, seven members of the St. Joseph High School class of 1952 and their spouses reminisced about old times and laughed at the prospect of future reunions.
"This is probably our last until we reach heaven," Kordsmeier, 77, said, adding the quip, "We don't buy green bananas, do we?"
It was the 60th class reunion for the graduating class of 12, all of whom are still alive and lead active lives.
"We don't sit around watching soap operas," Kordsmeier said.
The weekend celebration included a cook-out in North Little Rock and attending Saturday Mass at St. Joseph.
Class president Marian Skelton Swift, 78, said another classmate, Lawrence Siebenmorgen, 78, of Morrilton, also joined the group for dinner on Saturday. The class has had 25th and 40th class reunions, and Swift said this was the first time the group had seen Siebenmorgen, due to his traveling with the U.S. Air Force and living in another state for several years.
The group took a tour of the current school facilities, filled with modern technology and the foreign idea of "electives."
"Electives, what are electives?" Swift said. "We didn't have electives."
What the close-knit class of eight boys and four girls did have was a strong work ethic, a solid religious foundation and a family away from home.
"We all knew each other very well, we were like siblings," Kordsmeier said.
Back then, all of the 12 grades were in the same building and the class of 1952 was the first to graduate from the current high school.
Classes were taught by nuns and goofing off wasn't an option.
"When you were in class you were in class," Swift said. "You'd better be paying attention."
However, if someone happened to step out-of-line, discipline was quickly administered.
"We're not going to show our scars," joked Joe Bruick, 77, who is a deacon at St. Edward Church in Texarkana.
Besides the basics of their education, the class enjoyed various sports, including volleyball and football, and singing in the choir, which performed at every funeral Mass, Swift said.
The senior class play was "Our Hearts Were Young and Gay." Kordsmeier and Swift took the leading roles, depicting two women off on their first European adventure. Class treasurer Melanie Hamling Cumnock, 78, of Conway, said it was funny when one of the nuns tried to get Ernest Lock, 78, of North Little Rock, to say his line, "All aboard that's going aboard," with more gusto.
Though there were fun memories, times were tough, especially during World War II when everything from butter to nylon stockings were rationed.
"We were poor enough as it was," Swift said before the rationing.
For months, displaced families from Europe came to town and the class tried to help teach the handful of children English.
"We had to teach Polish people English," Kordsmeier said, as well as those from other countries, including Latvia and Germany.
War hit even closer to home when Cumnock's 9-year-old brother was killed by an Army truck when Cumnock was 7.
Despite the sadness surrounding the war, Swift said times were "simpler" back then.
For Christmas, pastor Father Anthony Lachowsky would take the entire school to the local theater to see movies like, "Going My Way" starring Bing Crosby, for 12 cents apiece.
Though Bruick said he joked with his children about walking uphill to school, Lock, nicknamed 'Splinter' for his thin frame, said he remembered once running up Squirrel Hill to catch the bus, when the sole of his shoe came loose and he had to "flap it up, put it down real quick."
"He lost his 'sole,'" Kordsmeier quipped.
Though some of the members of the class couldn't attend and most don't see each other regularly, if they're all together, it's like 1952 was yesterday.
"I'm just proud to be part of the tradition of St. Joseph's that's still going on today," Bruick said.
