VENTURA — The 40 Holy Cross nuns who live at St. Catherine's By the Sea are praying for a successful homecoming.
The former school offered Ventura County youth a parochial education for more than four decades. Now, the sisters living there have invited hundreds of former students to return to the six-acre campus, which was transformed 32 years ago into a retirement home for the women who dedicated their lives to serving God.
Sister Laurencita Maloney, 89, is one of several retired nuns living at St. Catherine's who taught at the school before it was closed in 1968. That same year, the order of the Holy Cross Nuns opened a 40-bed retirement home at the site, located at the intersection of Poli and Santa Cruz streets.
Maloney said she appreciates the efforts of former Academy of St. Catherine's students Pat Bullough and Joyce Cantrell, who have spent more than a year tracking down hundreds of other former students using only a few clues left from school archives.
"We had very little archives left after the school closed," Cantrell said. "Most of the records were sent to St. Mary's, the nun's mother home, in Notre Dame, Ind., [and] put in the basement never to be seen again."
Using only the maiden names of those who attended St. Catherine's all-girls high school, the Ventura women found it difficult to locate former students.
For 18 months the two women telephoned, e-mailed, advertised in local newspapers and made announcements in parish bulletins. Eventually they sent out 437 announcements and have received 260 ticket reservations, not counting the nuns and priests who will also attend the diamond jubilee celebration on Sept. 2.
An 11 a.m. Mass will be celebrated as part of the program. Officiating will be the Rev. Thomas J. Curry, bishop for the Santa Barbara region, Msgr. Patrick J. O'Brien of the San Buenaventura Mission and the Rev. William Olivas, chaplain for St Catherine's. A luncheon in the garden will follow.
Former congressman Robert J. Lagomarsino will be the program's master of ceremonies. He is a graduate of St. Catherine Elementary School and nephew of the late John Lagomarsino, one of the school's founders.
Maloney calls Olivas "little Willie" and remembers teaching him many years ago. She also remembers Lagomarsino as "young Bobby."
When she speaks of her former students, including Bullough and Cantrell, her eyes light up and glisten with tears.
