Lasallian DENA Archives

May 5th is National Teacher Appreciation Day. To those among us who are educators, we salute you! For today’s image we are sharing this image of “The Teacher’s Prayer.” This prayer comes from a small card that bears an image of St. John Baptiste De La Salle on the opposite side.

In the Catholic Church, May 1st is recognized as the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker. This feast day was established in 1955 to coincide with International Worker’s Day, which was commonly celebrated by worker’s rights activists around the world. The Feast of St. Joseph the Worker celebrates the contributions of workers and uplifts St. Joseph as a model of worker’s dignity.

For the occasion, we are sharing this image from the 1943 St. John’s College High School (Washington, DC) Yearbook. Here we see a custodian gruffly cleaning up after an event. He carries an incredible salt-of-the earth aura.

Saint John’s College High School Yearbook, 1943, pg. 37

This week we’re away in Rome at a conference for the International Society of Lasallian Archivists (Societe Internationale Lasallienne d’Archivistes - SILA). It’s great to spend this time learning and growing with colleagues from across the world. This photo is from a site visit our cohort made to the Central Institute of Paper and Archival Pathology. Thank you to IPAP for hosting!

April 22nd is Earth Day. Today we remember that we have to love where we live~ EARTH! Earth Day was established in 1970 as a Holiday that sought to encourage folks to eschew greater respect for the environment. In a similar vein, we have this image from the 1955 West Philadelphia Catholic High School for Boys (Philadelphia, PA) where we see a group of West Catholic students maintaining plants outside the school. They remind us today might be a good day to get our hands in some dirt.

A belated April Fool's Day to you all! We like to think as April Fools as a month-long affair.

We hope that everyone had a chance to goof off and kick back. Here we can see these students (affiliated with Calvert Hall’s literary magazine - VISTA) hanging upside down from the jungle-gym outside the school. Clearly their acrobatics were meant to get the creative writing juices going! Image taken from the 1966 Calvert Hall College (Towson, MD) yearbook.

April 15th is Tax Day! You might’ve heard the adage that there are no certain things in life except Death and Taxes. That’s certainly the case in this staging of the classic 1941 play “Arsenic and Lace.” If you’re not familiar, the story is a comedy / whodunnit with a morbid spin. A famous film adaptation was done in 1944 and starred Cary Grant and Priscilla Lane. Definitely check it out if you haven’t!

As the weather warms up a bit, it makes one think about swimming. Here is an image taken from the 1966 Calvert Hall (Towson, MD) Yearbook shows a small group of CHC students practicing for the “400 Yard Freestyle.” a type of swimming competition.

This week we saw the last few days of Passover! Passover is recognized in Judaism as a holy week which celebrates the biblical story of the Israelites' liberation from slavery in ancient Egypt. If you celebrate, we hope that you’ve had a blessed Passover! In recognition of the end of the Passover season, we are sharing this image from the 1974 South Hills Catholic (Pittsburgh, PA) Yearbook of a Hebrew lesson. Hebrew is, of course, the ancient language of the Israelites and is closely associated with the Jewish faith.