A Simple Life

As mentioned in my last post, what has begun interesting me most about Cardome is not its chronological history, but rather it is the intimate history of its inhabitants. As a child I often heard my father say something to the effect of "If these walls could talk, the stories they would tell!" I haven't been able to get those words out of my head. Let's think, what makes history so interesting? It's not the facts and figures, not the technical aspects that captivate our attention; it's human nature. Regularly in discussions and in speculations it is common to assume anthropomorphic tendencies and to desire to discover the culture of history, rather than the timeline, although it is equally as important and it's impossible to have one without the other.
I have discovered a few interesting publications in Cardome's archives that were published by students themselves. These have helped immensely in my search for personal experiences. Unfortunately I am on spring break and have forgotten my notes in the dorm. I will, however, attempt to explain what these have meant to my research and fill in any gaps later.
The first publication I found was a newspaper, the name escapes me, but there was only one edition in the archives. It had a variety of articles; thanks to the sisters, prayer requests, even jibs at classmates about their latest beaux. This was my favorite part of the paper because I had previously only thought of the girls as attendants of a private Catholic college and had not allowed them any personalities. After reading this, however, I discovered that some missed curfew, others dated older boys, some skipped class and they all enjoyed being young.
The second publication I found was a newsletter, or a magazine. It was called the The Chimes. Now that I say it out loud I suppose it is a Catholic play on "The Times". This magazine, for it was quite lengthy, was written by alumnae and, again, I couldn't find any evidence of more editions. There was an article written by a woman who graduated in 1927 and reminisced of times gone by. Apparently during her years there, there was no indoor plumbing. Every morning they had to fight to be the first downstairs to get the hot water. She didn't dwell on it as a negative, it was an endearing experience and a memory about which she told her children.
If anyone has a memory they would like to share, or photographs, it would be an asset to the future exhibition of Cardome Academy.