Next month a statue of Mary long familiar to generations of students of an all girls Catholic school will be on display in a new location.
All graduates of the former St. Mary of the Angels Academy in Haddonfield are invited to a Mass and dedication of the statue of the Blessed Mother that was on the school grounds. The event will be held at Bishop Eustace Preparatory School, Pennsauken, on Sunday, May 18, at 1 p.m., followed by a reception at Christ the King Church, Haddonfield, in Morgan Hall. Members of the Allegany Franciscan community are invited as well.
From 1945-72, the small private girls’ Catholic secondary school, run by the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany, N.Y., enrolled an annual student body of about 200 from South Jersey, with a few boarders at first.
Located on Kings Highway West, the school and convent were initially housed in two large Victorian homes. Classes were held in former bedrooms, with the living room serving as the library. Two outer buildings were eventually built to house two classrooms, a science lab, chapel and gym/recreation room.
In the mid-1960s the old school and convent were torn down and replaced by a new, larger school and convent. But in 1972 the school was closed and sold to Kingsway Learning Center, its current owner. The Franciscans retained the newer convent until selling it several years ago.
In 1972, with the school’s closing, several students transferred to Bishop Eustace Prep, which became coed that year.
Once the convent was sold, the only remaining vestige of the original SMAA was a statue of the Blessed Mother. It stood first on the rear grounds of the school, then in front of the new school and finally in front of the convent.
But when the convent was sold, the statue was without a home until Jim Rhoads, a Eustace alum and brother to three SMAA grads, bought the former convent and arranged for the statue to relocate to the grounds of Bishop Eustace Prep. Rhoads redeveloped the convent into apartments, naming it Academy House.
Graduates from the SMAA class of ’63 donated a plaque to go with the statue.
A free-will offering will be taken to cover costs of the May 18 event. Anyone planning to attend should contact Geri Egizi Borbe at borbe3@comcast.net
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