Sts. Peter and Paul Hall of Fame

My thanks to Adam Michna for providing his mother’s handwritten notes about the birth and death dates of Monongah’s nuns at Sts. Peter and Paul School.

These are the women who educated the coal miners’ children for decades, for only the roof over their heads and food in the kitchen and a love of God and children.

They also wielded a mean one-hole (venial sins) and two-hole (mortal sins) paddles for those of us who crossed the behavior line. I speak from personal experience, mostly from whackings by Sister Ursula and Sister Agnes, the best grammar teacher I ever had who got me started toward a 43-year newspaper career.

The first time I complained to my mother about the paddling, my mom, Lena Futten Olesky, gave me another spanking. I got the message and never tattled again and tried not to piss off the nuns.

Among other names on this list:

Sister Francis, whose disapproving look I still see in my nightmares when she discovered that I urinated outside the bathroom door because I couldn’t get the door open. You had to go outdoors to get to the bathroom, so it wasn’t like I messed up flooring or anything. But her look was withering, and deserved. But, hey, when you’re a little guy and gotta go, and you don’t have a golf course tree handy, you make-do.

Sister Agnes, besides reading Nancy Drew Mystery books till they got good and then putting it away on the shelf, forcing someone to read it to find out what happened, also whizzed by the Olesky house on Church Street in her brother’s Jeep. Pretty fast. Saint Christopher was kept pretty busy keeping Sister Agnes from a major collision.

Sister Ursula, built like a Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker, was a tough cookie. No nonsense around her.

Sister Dolores was one of two Michna daughters who became nuns.

Sister Joseph is kind of vague in my memory box, like a lot of things nowadays.

Maybe you remember some of the others. If so, email John Olesky at jo4wvu@neo.rr.com and I’ll add them to this article.

Every Catholic child who grew up in Monongah owes the nuns a humongus debt of gratitude and appreciation for teaching us extremely well, and trying to keep us on the straight and narrow.

Thanks, Sisters!