Newspaper Page Text
The Long, Long Trailer
PAGE 7 — The Southern Cross, December 21,1972
BY GRACE T. CRAWFORD
Macon News Staff Writer
Mrs. Mary Davis works in a long, long
trailer.
On one wall is a Winnie-the-Pooh
type bear in bright, pink sleepers,
snoozing under a willow tree. Down the
other are a series of gay animal murals --
a pink bunny, a bright green snail
stretched out under some tall orange
toad stools. There’s a turtle and a lamb
with a blue ribbon. Even Walt Disney’s
famous Brer Bear is there, swinging his
club.
But the focal point of these bright
surroundings are the 28 children who
fill the tiny chairs, dance and sing and
clap their hands, and cluster around the
small, soft spoken, grey haired woman
who teaches them.
Mrs. Davis has no children of her
own, but she has mothered hundreds of
them during the past 30 years as
kindergarten teacher at St. Peter Claver
Catholic School on Ward Street.
The Catholic Sisters of the Blessed
Sacrament who operate the school say
Mrs. Davis has the wisdom of Solomon,
the patience of a saint, and an
inexhaustible supply of enthusiasm. Oh
yes, there’s her sense of humor.
“Fantastic,” Sister Joan Thompson the
school principal, describes it.
“And Mrs. Davis also is an excellent
teacher,” she said. “She has a wonderful
Priest Sidewalk Santa
Kumamoto, Japan - He doesn’t wear
a Santa Claus costume, though that jolly
figure is very popular in Japan at this
time of year. And he doesn’t have a bell
or a big red kettle.
But in every other way Columban
Father James Norris closely resembles
the sidewalk Santas so familiar on U.S.
street corners during the Christmas
season.
Every weekend now you’ll find him
on a busy downtown thoroughfare here
with a large box and a poster suspended
from his neck, begging contributions
from the passersby.
It’s not for his own missionary
endeavors, but to help a Japanese
Protestant doctor who works among the
poor of Nepal.
For the past several years, the
Catholics here have been collecting
funds by this means for suffering people
in less developed lands. It didn’t take
them much effort to persuade their
pastor that he would be an ideal
crowd-stopper. A foreigner and much
taller than the average Japanese, he does
stand out in any crowd.
Columban Father Joseph O’Brien
agreed to get into the act too. “He relies
on his open, honest, map-of-Ireland
face, - and it works,” says Father
Norris.
“But since my face is one of those
nondescript cosmopolitan types that in
varying circumstances could be taken
for anything from a New Guinea native
to an Englishman, I had perforce to rely
on a smile.”
Whatever the reason - the smile, the
honest face, the devotion of the young
men and women who man a dozen
other street corners - the effort pays
off.
Depending on the weather, the
“sidewalk Santas” expect to raise
between $2,000 and $3,000 this year,
especially since some Protestand groups
have joined in the effort.
The school children are the most
generous as a group, he reports in the
current issue of COLUMBAN MISSION.
But it’s also bonus time in Japan, as well
as the season of the BONEN-KAI,
literally “forget the year” parties -
similar to Christmas office parties in the
U.S. And so the largest gifts usually
come from men who pass by after
attending one of these affairs - in high
spirits and in love with all mankind.
Every passerby gets something in
return - a card beautifully illustrated
with Christ blessing children and the
sick and including St. Francis’ prayer
for peace - a Christmas message every
non-Christian can easily understand.
way of handling children. She uses both
kindness and firmness. They’re very well
prepared to enter first grade, and are
beautifully adjusted from the start.”
St. Peter Claver School has been a
part of Mrs. Davis’ life since she was a
little girl in the first grade there. “Those
were the days when black children
didn’t receive very good schooling in
Bibb County,” she said. “Our mother
wanted us to get a good education, so
she sent us to the Catholic school.”
Years later, after Mrs. Davis became a
member of the parish, she joined the
school faculty herself, teaching first and
second grades for a time, then the fifth
grade, and finally taking over the
kindergarten.
“How do you like the little children,”
the school principal asked her one day.
“Why, I love them,” Mrs. Davis said.
“Good,” answered the Sister. “Guess I
have myself a kindergarten teacher.”
In the early days of her career, Mrs.
Davis had a full house. “And bursting at
the seams,” she said. “Eighty-five of
them. But do you know what I did?
Just worked with them in groups - same
way the Sisters have done all these years
with large classes.”
Mrs. Davis has a theory about
teaching small children. “Or any
children for that matter,” she said.
“Just love them. Merely tolerating
children is not enough. They sense this
and they react to it. It takes patience,
and lots of it.”
The kindergarten teacher has refereed
quite a few squabbles from time to
time. “But I just talk to them,” she said,
“and try to make them understand
fighting is no way to settle their
differences. I make them talk it out, and
shake hands. I tell them we’re like a
family in this class.”
Mrs. Davis acknowledges she has as
much fun as her children. Among one of
the big moments in the school week are
the “field trips” for a look at some of the
pretty old homes on Vineville Avenue.
And there are all manner of
questions. “What is that Mama Bird
doing, Mrs. Davis?”
“Oh, she’s pulling at a worm.”
“What is that flower, Mrs. Davis?”
MRS. MARY DAVIS AND FRIENDS at St. Peter home behind the school. From left, Patrick Nuttall,
Claver Catholic Kindergarten, located in a long mobile Dawn Wood and Eddie Jones.
“That’s a daffodil.”
“Why is that man raking those leaves
under that bush?”
“To make the soil rich.”
“This is fun, isn’t it, Mrs. Davis?”
“Yes, Jessie, this surely is fun.”
And there are presents from her
young friends - bright, yellow leaves
in an old bottle, a pretty rock, a pale
blue bird’s egg. And at Christmas, more
perfume than she can use in a year.
The kindergarten teacher shares many
problems with her children, most of
them minor ones. Recently however,
she spent some anxious hours trying to
find a way to make a silent little boy
talk.
How did she do it?
“He came in September, and in two
months, he never spoke a word,” she
said. “I was really concerned about him.
But yesterday, he talked, for the first
time, and he smiled.”
She took him for a walk. She held
him on her lap. She read him a story.
She put her arm around him.
“Why, I just loved him,” she said.
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SAVANNAH
‘Praise the Lord with Dance!
BY FATHER LAWRENCE A. LUCREE
Alive and dancing, warm, responsive
and involved, the Church can shout for
joy and weep in sorrow. There is no
need to be ashamed of showing her
emotions for the Church is the
heartbeat of people.
Dance was a form of worship in Old
Testament times, and, evidence exists
that dance was a part of the early
Christian Church. With the passage of
time, dancing and worship polarized.
(Psalm 149)
Now, dance, is, after a long absence,
taking its first step back into the
Church. It is especially fitting at
Christmas, in the light of history, that
the dancer, like other artisans, express
through dance the long-awaited coming
of Christ.
Pictured above are the Maude Evelyn
Murphy Dancers who performed an
Advent Liturgical Dance on Sunday,
December 17th, in the sanctuary of St.
Teresa’s Church, Albany. Interspersed
with Scripture Readings, the artists
performed through dance the
prophecies of the Old Testament and
the Birth of Christ.
Mrs. Murphy and several of the
dancers are members of St. Teresa’s
Parish.
The group will perform at the 1973
annual Convention of the Diocesan
Council of Catholic Women.
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THE HOLY FATHER'S MISSION AID TO THE ORIENTAL CHURCH
For eight years, Msgr. Nolan has journeyed to
Bethlehem to participate in midnight Mass on
Christmas. He has also taken gifts to our Lord
each year, just as the Magi did so long ago.
These gifts are gifts of love—thousands of them
from good people like yourself who want to help
the hungry, the sick and the helpless in the
Holy Land, the Near East and India. These are
just as much gifts to Christ as those of the Magi.
And they occasion no less rejoicing in Heaven.
Will you put your gift in Monsignor Nolan’s
hand before he starts his Christmas journey?
Simply fill out the coupon below and enclose
it with your gift. We thank you,, confident that
through sharing, your Christmas will be spirit
ually enriched.
□^$200 Builds a home for a family. ... He had
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□ $100 Provides a hospital bed and care for
a month. ... He had only a manger
□ $ F i Feeds 5 families for a month. ... He
was poor
□ $ 25 Supplies a year’s medical needs for a
Refugee family.... He was unattended
□ $ 10 Provides Braille Readers for a Blind
child. ... He came to give light
□ $ 2 Buys a warm blanket for a child. . . «
He had swaddling clothes
□ $ Provides love. ... HE IS LOVE
YOU
CAN
GIVE
Our missionary priests in the Holy Land will be
MASS IN pleased to offer promptly the Masses you re-
THE quest at Christmas. Simply send us, with your
HOLY LAND offering, the names of your friends and loved
ones, living and deceased.
The good you can do by remembering the mis-
A GIFT sions in your will goes to your credit eternally.
FOR ETERNITY Qur legal title: Catholic Near East Welfare
Association.
® AX
Dear enclosed please find $ .
Monsignor Nolan:
FOR.
Please name_
return coupon
with your street.
offering
CITY
.state.
.ZIP CODE.
THE CATHOLIC NEAR EAST WELFARE ASSOCIATION
NEAR EAST
MISSIONS
TERENCE CARDINAL COOKE, President
MSGR. JOHN G. NOLAN, National Secretary
Write: Catholic Near East Welfare Assoc.
330 Madison Avenue*New York, N.Y. 10017
Telephone: 212/986-5840