Stella Maris Alumni 60th Reunion

By Dan Guarino

Sixty years ago, the young women of Stella Maris High School in Rockaway Park met in its hallways and classrooms to excitedly talk about their present lives and future dreams. This fall, they reunited to reminisce, share stories and speak of the lives they have lived since then.

“We were the first freshman class to enter the new school building,” at Beach 112th Street, recalled members of the Class of 1964, who gathered at the Harbor Light restaurant to celebrate their 60th reunion. The “cafeteria was not operational, so we had to bring our own lunch!”

Noting the new ideas, changes and movements that swirled around their era, closer to home they recalled, “You could ride the subway, no matter what time of day or night, with no worries. (We) never locked our doors or windows.”

Stella Maris, an all-girls Catholic school established in 1943 by the Sisters of St. Joseph, was a Rockaway peninsula mainstay for nearly 67 years. “Stella,” as it was affectionately called by its students, had ties to Adelphi and St. John’s University and graduated thousands in its time.

Though its doors closed in June 2010, due to declining enrollment, its school spirit lived on as nearly 40 alumni of 1964’s graduating class gathered in Rockaway on September 5 to celebrate their 60th reunion.

“In September 2023, at our semi-annual friends gathering, I brought up the fact that the 60th anniversary of our high school graduation was fast approaching,” said alum Ann Marie Mullins Dougherty, noting “how wonderful it would be to celebrate this momentous occasion.”

There and then, these fellow classmates started up the Stella Maris 60th Reunion Committee, first not just to work on planning the gathering, but gathering up information and reaching out far and wide to their former classmates.

“We went into gathering information from ladies who held previous reunions, posting on the Stella Maris Alumni Facebook page, researched classmates on the Internet, etc.” Dougherty explained. “We were given attendance sheets from the reunion held in 2009, which was extremely helpful.”

By January, they had a robust list of names, addresses, email addresses and even a few phone numbers. Taking two sheets each, committee members called alumni, researched addresses, making sure former classmates still lived there, and in many cases, mailing flyers to last known addresses.

In April, committee members began visiting Rockaway locations to find the best site for the reunion. “Kathy Roberts of Harbor Light Pub was beyond accommodating, and the fact that we had three areas to roam about, together with their great food reputation, clinched the venue search,” Dougherty noted.

With the reunion fast approaching, anticipation ran high as to who would actually be attending. “Some alumni we had not seen since our graduation day.  The best thing about the reunion was how we were genuinely glad to reconnect!  Forty-four alumni said that they would like to attend the reunion – thirty-nine did attend,” with the furthest making it in from Florida.

Father William F. Sweeney, Pastor of St. Francis de Sales, attended, giving each a blessing and blessing the meal. Together, after six decades, the women talked about the days when, as a large placard noted, a new house cost $20,983, a movie ticket $.93 and a postage stamp $.05. Movies like “Mary Poppins” and “Goldfinger” filled screens, while the Beatles’ “I Want To Hold your Hand,” the Beach Boys’ “I Get Around” and Louis Armstrong’s “Hello Dolly” topped the charts, and future stars Keanu Reeves, Marisa Tomei and Russel Crowe were just being born.

“There were a lot of beginnings with all sorts of movements, social, political and moral,” alumni noted, as the placard also marked off events like the Vietnam war, the Mississippi deaths of three civil rights workers, the signing of the Civil Rights Act, Dr. Martin Luther King’s Nobel Peace Prize, and Beatlemania sweeping America and the world.

What else did they remember? The 1964 World’s Fair, and their senior trip to Washington D.C. were two standouts. At a father/daughter dance in April 1963, Dougherty recalls fondly, “My Dad and I were chosen king and queen of the event.”

At school, the former students recalled their one-piece gym uniforms and “how ugly they were to wear.” Leaving school and “rolling our skirts up, opening our top button of our blouses and heading to Admiration for a vanilla coke and a cigarette,” was also mentioned, as well as “working part-time in the local 5 & 10 cent store and purchasing a foot-long roast beef sandwich for a dollar and a soda for $0.25.”

After graduation, most academic track alumni went on to college, later pursuing careers in professions like psychology, nursing, teaching, and retail. Many commercial track alumni went onto secretarial professions. All had lots to talk about and catch up on upon reuniting.

Making the event possible were 60th Reunion Committee members Frances Alkire Barden, in charge of table decorations, table arrangements and souvenirs, Carol Flynn Bayne serving as greeter and handling name tags, Mary Doherty Brescio assisting with decorations, chairperson and treasurer Ann Marie Mullins Dougherty, Eileen Molloy Eldred handling photography for the event, Diane Corde O’Connor managing the memorabilia table, and Camille Oswald working with the venue search, as hotel and airline assistant, and liaison with Fr. Sweeney.

At the event, special activities included a drawing for five alumni to win the centerpieces, each individually made and featuring a photo of students with a nun at the school, and Barbie at a school desk in a plaid skirt and Stella Maris Class of 1964 t-shirt. Each alum also received their graduation picture, perched on a stick to hold up, a pen and Christmas ornament, both inscribed with “Stella Maris 60th Reunion” and date of the event, and a copy of the 2009 letter announcing the closing of the school.

As they look back on their lives, legacy and place in Rockaway’s story, perhaps most fitting was a quote posted to the Stella Maris HS, Alumnae and Faculty Facebook page: “Stella Maris girls we’ll always be…till we meet again…!”

Photos by Eileen Molloy Eldred.