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Page Two SKYSCRAPER An American Family's 1944 Thanksgiving Mother puts the final touches on the Thanksgiving dinner, and surveys the ta ble with a satisfied sigh. MOTHER Maybe Jim will be home a year from today. That thought has been in her mind since she closed the front door behind her, crossed the street, and -hurried up the worn steps to attend the 6:15 Mass in the parish church the church that has been her so lace during dark and uncertain days. To day, however, she has not asked she has given thanks thanks for the blessings that are hers and her family's in spite of the war and all the heartache it has brought. Jim, her son on a battlefield in the Pacific, is clothed today in the protec tive armor of a Catholic education, forti fied by the influence of a Catholic home, gallantly defending a cause which he re spects, a country and a way of life in which he believes. She has given Jim everything a mother can give. For the opportunity to have done that, she is supremely grateful. * * * Father's after-dinner cigar tastes just a little different today but then, everything is a little different this twen- FATHER ty-third of November. In stead of being just an ordi nary date on the calendar, it is a special date it is Thanksgiving Day. Election day is not long past, and, as Dad watches the ash slowly lengthen on his cigar, he breathes a silent prayer of thanksgiving that he lives in a country where a national election is still possible, even in wartime. He regrets, sometimes, that he is too old for service, but he derives immense satis faction from doing well the job that claims most of his waking hours an essential job, too, he reflects, and one that brings in sufficient money for him to be able to put a little more than 10 per cent of his salary into War Bonds. The war is a terrible thing, ha knows, as he turns on the news, but free men arc fighting and winning, and his own land has been preserved from de struction. Dad closes his eyes and silently numerates his own reasons for giving thanks, adding a prayer for young Jim's safety. * * * Sis smooths her hair and critically ap praises her appearance. She has prom ised to go down to the Canteen SISTER for an hour or two this after noon. Usually, on Thanksgiv ing, she and Jim would have a few friends drop in, but today Jim and most of the old crowd are celebrating in foxhole fashion. Maybe next year . . . She pulls her mind back to this year and to her volunteer du ties as a canteen hostess. Volunteer, she reflects, is a word not all girls her age can use nowadays. The hours she devotes to war work are voluntary. No one has told her that she must leave college and go to work in a factory. She isn't told what she must do for victory or how she must think about her own country and world security. Instead, she is encouraged to solve prob lems logically, to make her own sacrifices generously. She picks up her coat and starts for the canteen, with a song of thanksgiving crowding the loneliness out of her heart. * * Jim shifts to a more comfortable posi tion and begins a Thanksgiving Day letter home. He pauses to wonder BROTHER just what a captain would say in a letter to the fam ily on a day like this. He smiles, and be gins to describe his Thanksgiving dinner. His pen stops. The dinner really isn't what he is thinking about. Somehow, though, you couldn't tell your family, he reflected, how thankful you were that they were safe and that you had the opportu nity to fight for their safety in a country whose ideals you trusted. You couldn't tell them how wonderful it was to be free to read any newspapers that came in, to listen to any broadcasts, even to Tokyo Rose, if you wished. It would be terribly sentimental to mention Thanksgiving Days you remembered. You could say, though, that it was wonderful the way the mail came through, and you could send love and mention that maybe next year you'd be home and the war would be over forever. 1x xx'* xx XXx X ' gt;0 R4 jl Periodical Paging Through . There's a lesson to be learned from the pages of history that recount the Battle of Lepanto a practical lesson, as is pointed out by Helen Margaret O'Connor in her article, Lepanto and Today, which appears in the November CATHOLIC DIGEST. Chesterton tried to rouse the twentieth cen tury with his poem and make the world aware of its fatal internal ills and the fact that the enemy is at the gate. The author points out that Lepanto and Don John of Austria are not in reality the principal themes of Lepanto; they merely set the stage for the death of Christian knight hood, and Lepanto is its eulogy. Like most eulogists, Chesterton ends with a hopeful note; he sees another crisis of civilization; he listens for the call of still another Pius for fighting men. Jane Austen, How Could You writes Louis F. Doyle, S. J. in the November issue of THE CATHOLIC WORLD. How could Jane Austen neglect to leave us a few good letters that we might peruse, dissect, analyze, and include in biographi cal sketches? Everyone else of importance leaves us a wealth of letters there are the Letters of Browning, the Letters of Byron, the Letters of Keats, everything but the letters of Jane Austen who didn't let letters influence the interpretation of her writings. The author muses further that if Miss Aus ten lived today she would probably refuse to admit press men for interviews. We will never know who the man was in the life of Jane Austen, if any, or just what inspired Cassandra Austen to cut away parts of Jane's letters and probably destroy others. Leo McCarey, the man who wrote, pro duced, and directed GOING MY WAY, writes amusingly of his experiences in the motion picture industry in an article appear ing in EXTENSION MAGAZINE. Speaking of comedy ideas, he states that some have to be dug up and others tum ble like rainwater down a drain pipe. For instance, when he did THE AWFUL TRUTH, starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant, he was confronted with the problem of a suitable comedy ending depicting the reconciliation of the pair. The night before he was to shoot the last scene, he was dining at the Swiss Chalet in Santa Monica when a cuckoo-clock went off. The quaint little doors of the weather box flew open and two little figures came out and went back in again. That was just what Mc Carey wanted a reconciliation, no divorce. William H. Mooring appends to the article that which McCarey forgot to tell about himself. While everyone else is shouting for re construction ideas, Rebecca West in her re cent article in HARPER'S MAGAZINE pleads for no reconstructive thought for the moment. She urges us to try to realize the greatness and the significance of the Allied victory in France, and reminds us that English citizens are more than over tired; tempers are short; young and old have to watch themselves for forgetfulness and other results of extreme fatigue. She believes that we should think slowly about the reconstruction problem. Each country has a separate need, and should be allowed to prescribe individual measures. One country's gain could be another's poison, she reasons. No Scottie Dogs This Christmas Anyone who is patriotic and wise is do ing her Christmas shopping now, and almost every Christmas list is headed with the item Christmas cards. There are several schools of thought on this subject. One of these groups uses as its medium of expression a small dog or several furry kittens huddled in a corner of the card. Taken out of their context, the pictures on these cards are quite inoffensive and harm less, often rather charming, from a certain point of view. But reflection on the event they are supposed to signify and the thought they are designed to convey renders even the consideration of sending them inane. The Christmas season should be a holy time, a time the world should devote to the Son of God. It inspires thoughts of a manger in Bethlehem with a star for its roof, carols to break its stillness, a proces sion of white-robed choir boys through a dimly lit church, a snow-capped steeple reaching up toward God. Modern life, which is so exacting that it demands the epitome of appropriateness in dress and in manners, strays far from its expressed goal in an attempt at sophis tication when it comes to Christmas cards. There are many collections of cards that are apropos to the great feast all of Chris tendom hails with deep devotion. Catholic students should set the pace by asking for such Christian Christmas cards in depart ment and stationery stores, and, here at Mundelein, in the College bookstore. They're Talking About... VWITH a smashing electoral vote of 432 Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the second war-time election in the history of the United States. Eighty years ago this month, Abraham Lincoln polled 212 of the 232 electoral votes. * * * THE name of Henry Ford's post-war model will probably be a double one, and will cost only about three-fourths the price of the least expensive pre-war car. The forecast is that the new cars will be improved, not in appearance only, but in motor power and smoothness as well. * * * QNTARIO geese lost a friend last week vy in Jack Miner, -who operated a bird sanctuary on Lake Erie for their benefit. Seventy-nine-year-old Miner, who died of a heart attack, had for years been clipping metal tags to the legs of geese and tabulat ing the totals of those who returned. He had reports of those who came back from places as far-flung as Louisiana and Baffin Island. * * * MICROPHONES listened and recorders * hummed when the American Federa tion of Musicians lifted the 27-month ban on musical recordings last week. After record manufacturers agreed to submit to union requests, a wide-spread search for talent ensued and artists whose popularity hinges on the juke-box trade gave three cheers that they were back at work. * * * TWO helicopters proved a pleasant diver- 1 sion for 9 o'clock classes one day last week. En route from Glenview to Navy Pier, the versatile flying windmills swooped down past the skyscraper's win dows and created a series of wishful thoughts in the minds of students currently wrestling with transportation problems. Passed by Censor-* Commandant of the WAC detachment at Fort Deven, Massachusetts, Captain Margery Chapman, biology major of the Class of 1940, recently sent the following- message to the College: The first edition of the '44-45 SKY SCRAPER reached me today. Funny, but I have never been very lonesome, in the WAC, until I read that paper. It's hard to believe that it is eight whole years since I felt the same freshman emotions as are set forth on the editorial page. All the recollections . . . the funny ones, the inspiring ones . . . came back to me in a rush. As a matter of fact, it is because the flood of my memories has rather ex ceeded its riparian rights that I am writing this letter. Everything in THE SKYSCRAPER bears out the feeling I had when I first arrived at 6363 Sheridan Road. I always felt that, given a few years, Mundelein would grow to be THE women's college of the middle west. I guess I wasn't wrong. It has everything; it's free and natural; it is unsophisticated and, at the same time, cosmopolitan. Of course, I've come a long way since the days when I scuffed around the halls in saddle-shoes, with a mop of hair hangJ ing down my back. The Army's aim is to teach and train in a hurry, and Ira learned many lessons. The 27 months I've spent in the WAC have been wonderfoi and an experience that couldn't be pur chased or traded for all the wealth in the world. I sincerely believe that I'll be a better citizen for it, but I also must credit my Catholic education for providing the back- ground that helped to make me a 'good soldier.' Most helpful of all was the dis cipline, both self and imposed, that I learned at Mundelein. ... So this really turns out to be a thank-you letter to al the Sisters and the others who suffered, and groaned, and prayed over mc for four years. . . . MUNDELEIN COLLEGE Chicago, 40, Illinois Mundelein Chicago's Collegj For Women Under the Direction of the Sisters of Charity, B.V.M. Entered as Second Class Matter Nov. 30,15 at the Post Office of Chicago, Illinois. undertkj Act of March 3, IK97, 1.75 the year. Published semi-monthly from October to Mlf inclusive by the students of Mundelein College. Vol. XV November 20, 1944 No. Member ASSOCIATED COLLEGIATE PRESS ebbH Telephone: Ambassador 9011 Co-Editors-in-Chief Mary Grace, Carnei Jayne King Associates Mary Burns, Jerry Stuttj Mary Catherine Tuomey Copy Editors Eleanor ArendlJ Joan Templeman Associates Viola Brcnnad Mary Martha Cooper, Dolores HartipJ Lois Hintze. Patricia Hollahan, Audrey Mc Donnell Feature Editors Mary Beecherl Patricia Curran, Sheila Finney, Alice Man Horen, Genevieve Urbain News Editors Regina Best, Florence Jankcwski Associates Celeste Boudreitu Patricia Lee, Dolores Toniatti, Gladys Sulli van Sports Mary Cannon, Dolores CervenloJ Colleen Rettig Reporters: Mary Ann Anderson, Ruth Casey, Adelaide Costello, Lorraine Gross, Rosemarj Kelly, Rosemary Kiley, Rosemary O'Ccnnod Geraldine Steck, Mary Catherine Quinj Dorothy Watters, Rosemary Templeman
title:
1944-11-20 (2)
publisher:
Women and Leadership Archives http://www.luc.edu/wla
creator:
Mundelein College
description:
Student newspaper for Mundelein College
subject:
Newspapers
subject:
Religious communities--Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
subject:
Students
subject:
Universities and colleges
subject:
Women's education
relation:
Mundelein College Records
type:
Text
language:
English
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coverage:
Chicago, Illinois
coverage:
Mundelein College