This book began as a small history of a school that educated the children of Saint Augustine Parish for eighty-eight years. The school opened in 1928 and closed in June of 2016. Rising tuition prices, falling enrollments, burgeoning costs, and $8 million worth of structural improvements brought the great teacher down. Tuition was $5 in 1928 and $4,650 in 2016 -- an increase of about 95,000 percent! Undoubtedly the property will be sold, the building will fall under the wrecker's ball, and old memories will fade to black. Watching the past disappear is like a mother burying a child. It happens, but never sits right with anyone.
This book begins with the founding of Saint Augustine's Parish in 1902. Saint Augustine Church began as a roofed-over foundation hole, and didn't improve much until 1912 when the resplendent, cathedral-like Saint Augustine Church came to completion. The school -- St. Augustine's -- didn't come on line until September 1928. It took the parishioners sixteen years to pay off the church and bank a sizable down payment for the school.
Though the original plan was to start with four grades, Saint Augustine School actually started with only three. Those were Depression times, and as students got to the upper grades, they were wedged into temporary classrooms in the basement. In 1937 and 1939 wings were added and St. Augustine's finally had eight grades. In 1962, a convent rose at the far west end of the property. The huge complex reached completion with only fifty-four years left on the clock.
During the go-go decades after World War II, St. Augustine's had twenty-five classrooms and a student body of almost 1000. Classes averaged forty students. Saint Augustine's became the largest parochial school in Connecticut, undoubtedly contributing to the fact that it closed last among the parochial schools of Hartford.
Since your storyteller has chosen not to judge the pupils at work or the children at play, pseudonyms have been used to describe the comings and goings of those who are still with us. Undoubtedly, there are misses here and there, but trust that some of the highs and lows of the St. Augustine's years might possibly have been missed per inclination of the Good Lord.

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• History

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