Aquinas College Archives Blog

  I grew up on a Michigan farm, the last of twelve children.  We were not poor, but we lived off what we produced from a yearly harvest.  My aunt married a Detroit businessman, who had a more lavish lifestyle.  Once a year she visited my mother and the conversations turned to politics.   She was Republican and my parents were all for Delano Roosevelt, who helped farmers around us keep their land from falling into debt.  At a young age, I was not interested in politics, so I was happy when she returned to the city and our home was peaceful again.  President Roosevelt's policies surely  influenced my future voting choices.   I graduated at age seventeen and entered Central Michigan College.  Since the voting age was twenty-one at that time, my first presidential vote was for John F. Kennedy when I was in my third year of teaching high school at Catholic Central in Alpena. The first Irish Catholic to be elected president...

  When Covid came home. Predicted pandemics had come and gone without much effect on my life. I recall the concern about HIV/AIDS and Ebola. At first, I didn’t think much about this new danger. These dreadful outbreaks happened in other countries where medical care was not as advanced and sanitation not as readily available.  And then, suddenly, it was different. Terror is not too strong a word to describe the feeling. The date was March 17 th , 2020 – St. Patrick’s Day. The country was shutting down including schools, restaurants, sporting events, theaters. All non-essential travel was to be avoided. Even Sunday Mass at Marywood was cancelled. This has never happened before in my lifetime.  How long would it last? Will there be enough food? Would we have clean drinking water?  The sky and river looked the same as ever. The birds and squirrels didn’t change their behavior. We scurried about to find facemasks. The first walks in the neighborhood felt awkward as we pa...

  I settled in my car, suitcase packed for what I thought was to be a ten-day trip, waved goodbye to staff, and with a deep breath, set off for my 8-hour drive up north. It was Friday, March 13, 2020. I was principal of St. Edward School, a small Catholic school in Nashville, Tennessee. I had just said goodbye to students and families for the start of Spring Break. But it wasn’t feeling like a typical vacation from school. As students climbed into their cars their backpacks were bursting with textbooks, electronic devices, and packets of work from teachers. Parking lot conversations circled around talks of canceled vacations, canceled baseball tournaments, and rumors of staff and students in the local high school who might have “the virus”. A feeling of uncertainty and apprehension hung in the air as staff wished each other well without the physical connection of hugs that we were all so used to. Then my trip to Grand Rapids began. For months before, I had heard about the loom...

I realized that the COVID-19 pandemic was going to be a global, life-changing event when I noticed how interrupted my routine was. At first, when news of the pandemic was beginning to spread, I wasn't very concerned; I remember the H1N1 crisis, and being vaccinated and hearing of its impacts then, but I was far too young to have any strong connections to the event. Because of this, I have no personal reference of comparison for Coronavirus. I think my point of realization was going to the store to pick up a few items for my mom, who was too scared of the virus to go out herself. I saw entire shelves empty due to other customers stocking up. My parents were in a frenzy, frequently going to various stores all over our area, buying what they could. Additionally, I was also stunned into reality when I realized how business's supply chain was impacted; my mom would order things online and they wouldn't arrive for months later, if at all.

 The year 2020 has already been described as a major turning point in history. Plenty of history has been made in 2021 already as well.  Just as we love to read or hear first-hand accounts of significant historic events today - from the letters home of ordinary men fighting in the Civil War included in Ken Burns’ documentary, to the stories our own grandparents tell - people in the future would love to hear from us about What It’s Like To Be Alive Today.  Many local history and other organizations are soliciting the submission of pandemic stories from the public.  The archives of the Dominican Sisters of Grand Rapids and Aquinas College are collaborating to encourage both Sisters and Students to share stories in a public, online forum about What It’s Like to Be Alive Today.    Every two weeks we will introduce a new topic or writing prompt.  We are asking participants to submit stories of 1000 - 1500  words related to that subject.  We will r...