The Journey Continues: THE JUNIORATE Letters home, 1963 – 65 Part 11

On his third Christmas away from home, the Junior’s Christmas letter is a very brief reflection and expression of gratitude. The January 3rd letter presents a thorough description of the Junior’s Christmas and one hopeful hint that in the summer of 1965 he might be enable him to visit home ‘to play cards’. He comments, “All in all it was such a relaxed and peaceful Christmas” and points out the care one particular Junior gives him as he continues to contend with the knee injury! The background of the January 27th letter is the coping with the forced physical inactivity. It includes a detail about the change in the daily ordo, rising at 6:30 a.m. and celebrating Mass together in the afternoon! Something entirely new. It ends with a joyful hand written comment about his mum having her first dryer!

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IGNATIUS COLLEGE, Guelph, Ontario

Christmas, 1964

Dear Mum and Dad,

Around this time of the year I usually begin to get sentimental. Having observed that Christmas changes a little each year, I start wondering what Christmas is like back home. Even here at Ignatius College Christmas is always just a little different than it was last year. The customs don’t change very much so the change must come from within.

I remember the happiness I felt when quite young, particularly the tingly feeling at the Gloria at midnight Mass. (That was something I always looked forward to from the day mum convinced me to go that Mass. I was about six and preferred my sleep.) I suppose the change is just a process of growing older. In any case, somewhere along the line I lost that wonderful bubbly joy and this is probably one of the reasons for the nostalgia.

Fortunately, that excited happiness has been replaced with another happiness which is just as wonderful and extremely valuable; the happiness that comes with peace and contentment. That is what I pray and wish each one of you will have this Christmas and throughout your lives.

Thank you all very much for your many prayers and sacrifices during the past years. I needed them very much and still rely very much on your prayerful support. Enclosed is my Christmas gift to you. [a Spiritual Bouquet of many Masses and prayers.] You will be in my thoughts and prayers on Christmas Eve and Midnight Mass.

Love

Frank

P.S.- I hope and pray all of you weathered the storm well. It didn’t sound too pleasant.

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IGNATIUS COLLEGE

Guelph, Ontario

Jan. 3, 1965

Dear Mum, Dad and Family

I’ve been meaning to get this letter off for the last few days but never did get it done. For the first time in my life, I believe, I have had a ‘green Christmas’. But even if there wasn’t any snow, it has been the best one I’ve had at Guelph.

We finished out exams on the twenty-third of December (9:00 – 11:00 a.m.) And then had the rest of that day and all of the next to decorate the place. I helped decorate the auditorium. We put up a twelve foot white pine in the middle of the room and decorated it with many, many lights, a few ‘bobbles’, and a lot of tinsel. (By the way your tree looks lovely. Lil sent some pictures.)Obrigewitsch family tree.

We closed the curtains of the stage and hung a mural of the three kings, constructed out of colored paper and wrapping paper on a black background, in the middle of them. (All those bits and pieces that I save during the year come in handy when something like that comes up. There are a couple of us who college and we get ‘kidded’ about it. Some people are born collectors.)

 So that everyone could go to the music room back stage, we opened the stage curtains at both sides about four feet wide and put blue curtains at an angle about three feet behind them so that you could not see the backstage. On these blue curtains we focussed blue spot lights and on the three kings we focused yellow spots. We put sprays of scotch pine done us with red ribbon and tinsel on the walls of the room. The over all result was pleasant.

The refectory was beautiful. In the middle of the room they put a painted white tree beneath which were place two little carol singers, life size figures constructed by Brother Bonic. There is just too much to describe and so I’ll go on with my story.

While we were decorating Santa dropped in to deliver some gifts to us. These were lovely chairs for the Juniorate rooms. They look just like the one I’m sitting on in that picture of my mural (Last Christmas). We used them in the auditorium and music room during the holidays.

We finished decorating early in the afternoon and then put all the parcels under the Christmas tree. (The parcels had been stored away as they arrived in the mail and only brought out then.) The mail was strange this year. Up to the twenty-third there was very little and only first class mail. On Christmas Eve I received about twenty cards. What a lot of fun it was reading all that mail.

At about ten fifteen we had a Christmas ‘hootenany’ in our music room which consisted of mostly ‘home-made’ carols and prayers. It was fabulous. However, it was only a prelude to a yearly tradition. After the ‘hootenany’ we picked up our candles and began walking all the halls waking everyone with Christmas Carols. Singing in the stairwells is the most fun because the voices echo through the whole house, especially if you’re singing the gloria in “Angels we have Heard on High”.

Midnight Mass was tremendous. One of the high points of Christmas Eve is the Martyrology. It is sung and there is a long introduction before the announcement of the birth of Christ, e.g., during the reign of so and so seventy years after the foundation of the city of Rome, so many years after the flood, etc. etc., then the melody changes dramatically to announce the birth of Christ. At that moment the celebrant brings out the small statue of the Babe and place it in the crib.

The second high point is the Gloria of the Mass. This year the congregation joined in the non-harmony parts of the Mass and the singing was to spirited that I’m sure the roof almost raised. After the second Mass we all went down to the refectory to have some hot Chocolate and cookies by candle light. (All the tables had a couple of Christmas candles as center-pieces.)

After, we helped the novices clean up, then they went to bed (they had opened up their gifts right after supper) and we went to our recreation room to open our gifts.

What lovely gifts! Thank you very, very much. I’ll write each of the girls to thank them for their gifts. Thank you very much for the sweater mum and dad, it is beautiful. All the food was just too much! Your cakes and cookies were delightful and so was your popcorn which looked and tasted just like the colored popcorn that you can buy at the Nut House in Regina. It was eaten up very quickly during a T.V. program.

Thanks for the handkerchiefs and candy and nuts. Bernice sent a lovely bottle of after shave (which is very handy because now shaving is becoming almost a daily chore). Marlene gave me a love pair of socks and two beautiful handkerchiefs. Myrna sent an endless note pad and the kiddies sent me initialed writing paper. Vivian sent a couple pairs of socks, a beautiful blue toque, and a lovely photograph of her family which I will treasure.

Lil sent me a set of Yardley’s and an enlargement of a snap of Blaine. I just received a lovely letter from her yesterday and some snapshots. I hate to say this but the little ones are growing up so quickly and changing that I am having a more and more difficult time keeping up. One picture I enjoyed a lot was of Dad, Bill Charlie and Matt playing cards. We’ll have to play some cards this summer if . . . .

Well, it was pretty late by the time we ‘hit the sack’ and morning came so quickly. We had another Mass in the morning and after breakfast we choir members rode in a paddy wagon t the Ontario Reformatory to sing for their Mass. We hope they liked it. After Mass they treated us to coffee and cake. (It is not a very pleasant place with all those iron bars and sour faces etc.)

Most of the remainder of the day was spent in talking to the novices and brothers because there was no ice for a hockey game. Christmas dinner was very enjoyable. All in all it was such a relaxed and peaceful Christmas.

Because of my leg injury most of my holidays have been spent playing chess and reading. (By the way, could you remember that intention your prayers? It’s going on to two months since the injury and the healing doesn’t seem to be progressing too quickly.) There is one brother here who makes it his business to keep me ‘chipper’. He plays chess with me and helps keep me busy.

For Christmas he got a tiny tree and decorated it with many little things he made, and put it in my room on Christmas Eve. As you can see, I’m in good hands. (My invalid companion’s legseems to be improving quite rapidly.) During the holidays I also gave a short retreat to a young man. Retreats are always difficult for me to give but very rewarding.

New Year’s was another pleasant day. Since there still was no ice, most of the day was spent playing indoor games and talking. In the evening we had a ‘card Party’ evening for thewhole community. It was very enjoyable, and profitable for I won a lovely pair of gloves.

I’m running out of things to say. There is probably much left unsaid and I have probably forgot to say thank you for something. So I will say thank you all for your love because your gifts and wishes showed me it. All I can say is that I treasure it very much. All will be remembered in a novena of Masses. Please continue to pray for me.

Love

Frank

P.S. It has finally turned cold and we now have snow and ice

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.IGNATIUS COLLEGE

Guelph, Ontario

Jan. 27, 1965

Dear Mum and Dad,

“The time has come. . . .” and gone. I should have written this a long time ago but. . . At long last we are finished our first term exams. I’m afraid I didn’t do as well this year as last except in Latin which is one of my best marks. On Monday we had our Latin exam and </spa >yesterday we had our oral exams. As usual I bumbled through it. What made it worse was that I just got back from class at the O.A.C. [Ontario Agricultural College] and had only time to give my overcoat to Brother Sauve because just as I got to the classroom door the bell sounded for my turn.

Today we began a new ordo for the day. We get up at six-thirty and to bed at fifteen to eleven. Mass is in the afternoon and our other spiritual duties and prayers are shifted a little also. We are experimenting to find out what is most practical. It should be interesting and enjoyable, for they say a change is better than a rest. This week we had forty hours devotions. The altar was lovely and the whole time was valuable and enjoyable.

I was just reading what I just wrote and it is all very boring to me. The thing is that nothing is coming to my head that might be interesting to you. Perhaps if I tell you how the weather has been something will start to come. We have been having miserable winter weather. It was raining the past few days and now that everything is coated with water colder weather set in and today we are having much snow. You can imagine what weather like that does to the spirits of avid hockey players. First the rink is too soft than the snow comes so that they have toclean the ice.

 It doesn’t bother me, for my sake, because it doesn’t look as though I’ll have much of a hockey season this year. I tried on the skates in the middle of the month but decided to wait until next month. The leg seems to be improving slowly so perhaps by the middle of next month I will be able to try skating again. I keep busy by playing chess.

Yesterday I played three games and won them all. Today I won one and the other I lost. Of course chess is not my only recreation. I’ve taken up ping pong. It’s not easy because I have to station myself at one end of the table and cannot move around too quickly but with more practices I might be good enough to give the experts in that field a good fight.

Tomorrow we begin classes again so that should keep me busy in future. Tonight inhonor of St. John Chrysostom we are having a movie, called ‘The Scapegoat’ starring Alex Guiness. St. John is patron of our debating society. By the end of the week we will elect a new president for the society and so that will be one duty I shall lose.

Lillian wrote me a letter last week. Please thank her for me. I shall write her shortly. I hope you are all fine and that your are relaxing mum. You are all remembered in my prayers every day. Please pray for me.

Love

Frank

[handwritten]

P.S. – Thanks very much for the letter mum. I can imagine how much easier it is with your dryer. We have a washer and dryer here at the college and both are sort of automatic. I put my wash in the washer, turn it on and come back a half hour later and put the wash into the dryer. That way I don’t have to wait for my laundry. Of course, shirts and things like that have to sent out and take a while. But all in all the machines are quite handy.

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All photos courtesy of Frank Obrigewitsch, SJ.

Frank Obrigewitsch, SJ, is pastor of St. Ignatius parish in Winnipeg.

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