Children's names

God has blessed me with a great memory for names. Even going back 40 to 50 years, I can look at a photo of children I taught or were altar servers, and I can name the majority of them. In fact today I am testing myself and see how many of these Holy Spirit students I can name from back in 1982 when I spent 10 years among them. This was a 5th Grade class, and here are the family names of the girls, top row first, left to right. I am skipping a few which I don't remember but the majority are here: McCabe, Hackett, McCartan, Guder, Hannigan, Lowder, Diers, Santangelo, Ward, Cunningham, Trunfio.

And among the boys, we have: Greiner, Mikowski, Robertson, Persichelli, Pellicone, Foy, Nyhus, Schiraldi, Walsh, Roetger, Riley, Burns, Diaz. Most of them were altar-boys. Unfortunately the school closed down in around 2000 with low enrolment and an influx of non-Catholic students, whose parents would not support the church. Back then we had 13 nuns in the parish convent, and around 6 of them worked in the school, as teachers, librarian, assistants, and principal. The nuns were very grateful as they hosted my parents on two occasions when they visited me in the early 1980s. Sadly there may be one nun left in the parish, in New Hyde Park, NY. When I arrived there in September 1981, we were 6 priests, but within 3 years we were down to 3 and eventually 2 when I was transferred to St Anthony's in Rocky Point, NY. My pastor at Holy Spirit and best friend Fr John Heinlein died last year on April 14, aged 90.