Friends from high school celebrate 80th birthdays at the shore
CAPE MAY — Flashback to 1960. Seven teenagers become friends while attending Little Flower High School in Philadelphia. Fast forward to today. They’re all 80 years old but still feel like teenagers when they get together.
To celebrate their 80th birthdays, the octogenarians recently held a four-day party at the Avalon House, a restored Victorian home in Cape May.
“Where better to contemplate 80 years of blessings and adventures than at New Jersey’s first beach resort?” asked Rosemary Griffin Carolan of Monroe Township, Middlesex County. (In fact, Cape May is widely recognized as America’s oldest seaside resort.)
The women started commemorating birthdays together every five years after their 30th class reunion, held in Wildwood.
“We went to a club and were dancing to ’50s and ’60s Motown music, the Beatles, Chuck Berry and the Temptations — “Bandstand” stuff — when the lightbulb went off. We should do this more often,” Carolan said.
The group decided to throw a big bash to mark their milestone 80th birthdays. No one stood over a cake to blow out 80 candles, but they did everything from sightseeing to dancing to ’60s CDs on a boom box.
“Mostly, we talked and ate,” Carolan said.
The highlight of the get-together, she added, “was sharing life’s reflections and eating lots of homemade food.”
Here’s a look at the party agenda:
Day One: “We got caught up on all our lives over a lunch of homemade vegetable soup,” Carolan said.
For dinner, Rita Carr Yucha, of Lemoyne, Pa., prepared a complete turkey dinner.
Day Two: The group cruised aboard the Cape May-Lewes Ferry. In Lewes, Del., they toured the town, shopped and ate lunch at the Oyster House.
Day Three: The women created decoupage artwork of sea creatures on shells as keepsakes. Some walked the beach to the Cape May Lighthouse while others strolled through town admiring Victorian homes and shopping at the Washington Street Mall.
Day Four: The group gathered for a leisurely breakfast, followed by (you guessed it) a leisurely lunch.
All of the women agree that seeing each other makes them feel young again.
“When I see my friends, I don’t see 80-year-old women. I see girls from high school. We feel like high school kids. But, when I look at our photos, I think to myself, ‘We’re old,” Carolan said.
“I touch back to when I was a 14- or 15-year-old. It was as if it were yesterday,” said Maureen Mahan Schaeffer, an Abington, Pa., resident who was student council president while attending Little Flower.
All born in 1946, the first year of the Baby Boom, the women learned community leadership and life lessons at Little Flower, an all-girls school.
“We formed strong bonds in our early years. Little Flower fosters sisterhood,” Carolan said.
The women note that their lives have been full and varied. Consider: Collectively, they have 40 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Their careers span education, nursing, music, pharmacology and more. Two women joined the convent, while another drove a pink Cadillac on the job.
Memory Lane
The women shared snapshots of their lives and high school memories.
Yucha worked as a nurse in the maternal child health field. She and her husband Tom, Harrisburg-area residents, have three sons and 10 grandchildren.
“High School was a joyous time for me. I made lifelong friends. I received a wonderful education, which set the stage for the rest of my life,” said Yucha, who served as vice president of student council at Little Flower. “The dances at Our Lady of Ransom School were the place to see and be seen. We got to meet boys.”
Ellen Thomas, a Wilmington, Del., resident, became a nun. She taught grades first through eighth and high school, and provided adult education. She left the convent after 23 years and continued to teach adults.
“High school was a wonderful opportunity to learn not only academic subjects, but to learn about each other. Students came from different communities in the Philadelphia area,” Thomas said.
Carolan spent five years in the convent. She later married. She and her husband Bill have a blended family of five children and 11 grandchildren. For 30 years, she drove a pink Cadillac, selling Mary Kay cosmetics (The iconic Cadillac was given to top salespeople).
At age 71, Carolan earned her Ph.D. and taught college students in the prison system. Like many of her high school classmates, the day President John F. Kennedy was shot (Nov. 22, 1963) is etched indelibly in her memory. “I was in physics class, and the news came over the PA system,” she said.
Barbara Klaczynska Schmidt earned a Ph.D. in history. She taught for 50 years, and later started a fundraising consulting business. She and her husband Frank live in Melrose Park, Pa., and have a second home in Ocean City. They have a son and two granddaughters.
Like Carolan, Schmidt vividly remembers being in class when JFK was assassinated.
“It was announced when I was in eighth period Latin class. We had our senior prom five days later at the Bellevue Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia. It was a solemn occasion,” Schmidt said.
Jean Grace Lyons, a resident of South Plainfield, N.J., worked for pharmaceutical companies. She and her husband Ed have two children, seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Her fondest memory is playing the harp in school musicals.
Schaeffer, who worked in the insurance industry, has two children and five grandchildren.
“Some of my favorite memories from high school come from participating in plays. The world of theater is exciting,” she said.
Kathy Hess Mooney, who served on student council at Little Flower, was a stay-at-home mom. The resident of the Villas section of Lower Township and her husband James have three children and five grandsons.
On celebrating their 80th birthday together, Yucha said, “Here we are 62 years out of high school, laughing and enjoying life. It’s a gift.”
At the end of this year’s celebration, Carolan noted, “We packed up and carried home abundant leftovers, souvenirs and priceless memories.”
– By ALICE URBANSKI/For the Cape May Star and Wave
