A big day for the little school on Palmyra Street
Submitted by Larie Tedesco
Times Picayune 07-30-1989


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Pictures from the Past
 
 
It was a sunny day in June 1924 when the graduating class of McDonogh
11 School assembled for a portrait in the side yard of the school at
Palmyra and South Prieur Streets. 
 
"It was a tiny school, "recalls Ruby Jee Baum, third row, fourth from
right. "Tall people had to stoop down to get in the door." Baum
remembers teachers who were strict disciplinarians. She says
principal Mele Lancaster "ruled with an iron hand."
 
Baum says lifelong friends and former classmates Fanny Rosenberg
Rittenberg and Grace Feehan Vargas helped her identify the class of
'28.
 
Pictured, top row, from left, are Norma Varnado, Emily Gremillion,
Harold Ratcliff, Celia Larsen, Lance Bonnett, Ruby Jee, Lionel Henry,
Marie Berthold, Fanny Rosenberg; second row, Cecile Voisel, Thomas
Karl, Gaetana Silvestri, Harry Barbier, Vera Wilson, James Azcona,
Dorothy Hartshorn, Mary Belle Dauterive; front row, Margarite
Banderet, Grace Feehan, Louise Hazard, Katie Silvestri, Lillian
Horton, Evelyn McNulty and Sarietta Gordon.
 
The little white-stone school with wooden floors that Baum fondly
remembers is still standing at 2009 Palmyra St. Al Kennedy,
communications coordinator, Orleans Parish School Board, says the
building, erected in 1878, now houses the New Orleans Center for
Health Careers.