Harrowgate Tales - Excerpts

My latest on Kindle - Harrowgate Tales


Excerpts:


Parade in Kensington - Harrowgate Memorial Day Parade


...The biggest event annually in Harrowgate - Kensington was the Memorial Day Parade being that most parents of school aged children in the neighborhood and areas were veterans of WWII and Korea. Old males likely vets of WWI etc. I once marched in Memorial Day Parades in high school with the North(east) Catholic High marching band of which I played Sousaphone.

One performance I personally remember was in a parade that was in Port Richmond, we were bused to different locations that day in a P.T.C. chartered bus. There I saw two amazing things. An old man of about ninety, skinny and tall and wearing what looked like a Boy Scout Uniform with some medals and looking through thick as the bottom of a Coke bottle lenses of his eyeglasses. This old guy was an actual Veteran of the Spanish American War. Small world. There too, this is the late 60's, I saw my English teacher from freshman year who at that time was a seminarian studying to be a priest, teaching on a year long sabbatical of sorts, teaching in our high school for a year, after finishing four years of college in the seminary before continuing with an additional four years of seminary training after this year of teaching. It was after all a teaching religious order and his salary from the archdiocese doubt went to support the order. 

He was no longer in a black cassock but in a white tee shirt, shorts and sandals. She was also with what must have been his girlfriend. He saw me during a break from marching and said hello with no other explanation other than to say hello and ask how Junior year was going etc. I guess he left the seminary for one reason, reasons or another etc. ...


The Long Dark Corridor

...I guess that the religious order had decided to maintain the property until it could be evaluated whether to sell it - use it, convert it etc. I think that maybe about fifteen priests and seminarians used the grand estate as a second faculty house - to relieve overcrowding in the primary faculty house – and commuting by car back and forth to the high school. 

In retrospect I connect some dots (possibly in total error) and perhaps it was the gay section of the original faculty house that went into separate quarters at this white elephant mansion. 

Oh this speculation breaks down into two categories: good gays, abstaining from gay sex religious and the bad gays - actually occasionally practicing their natural instincts - 

There is not much to this story except for connecting dots and wondering. In the middle of that sophomore year, a young, dynamic, charismatic seminarian teacher died in a car crash coming back from some long distance weekend duties - deacon at some parish etc. I remember his picture in the newspaper and the official speculation that he had fallen asleep at the wheel of his car in this "single vehicle collision" - And then my biology teacher, I liked him, died during the summer break. 

I suppose I would not be writing this today except that in the next school year, my junior year, a very prissy but not unlikable priest blurted out something in class. Father Tom, a history teacher, said something like a veiled admission regarding the sudden tragic death of Father Ed, the biology teacher. He said something like "wrapping oneself around a highway pillar was indeed a suspicious thing to happen" while talking to the class one day, I think his comments went over many students heads... 

Chapter Two - The Long Dark Corridor

...But I got the A+++.  Been there.  Done that.  Time to move on. Etc. 

I decided then and there. I would drop his course. So much of what he had fed this class so far was his own personal bullshit full of his ambitious plan to one day run the school system downtown which he in fact did one day. I have since read many things about cults and brainwashing and such and “E.” would have made a great Jim Jones in the secular world etc. IMHO. 

I also as I have written this blog for many years have to wonder how ambitious church lady types with penises, how they rise to the top of their professions being perhaps tops and not giving a shit about who gets ground into sausage along the way, especially children.

I also have  to wonder how “E.” built his great education system as the archdiocese, one by one, shut down their inner city schools and high schools.  That glory sometimes is a story, a press release, as the world and or institution dies from attrition.  

Will the last person in the Archdiocese Education Office at “222” kindly turn off the lights as they leave the building forever. 

I also have to wonder how many times how the elites of the Education Department rubbed elbows with the Elites of the hierarchy at board meetings or gatherings over cocktails and how polite church talk and education talk never got mixed with the very real talk of child abuse and criminal cover up emanating from the Cardinal’s penthouse office suite on the top floor above?...

Forever Amber - a Film Banned in Philly by Cardinal Dennis Dougherty

Wikipedia Commons - Public Domain USA (copyright not renewed) 

Trying to find his pastoral letter, its exact wording, around June 1934 having Catholics in the AD of Philadelphia boycotting all cinema to make it more decent by the absence of Catholics therein, I ran into old Denny's tirade against Forever Amber being banned at the FOX theater downtown. I can't find proof of his ever rescinding his 1934 fatwa. So why the shout out again in 1947 to the faithful?

No mention of the 1934 Fatwa against the ethnic types in Hollywood in his seemingly incomplete Wikipedia biography. 

I researched and there is no anti-Semitic angle that might have stirred his little pee-pee, so I guess the theme of the novel and movie Forever Amber of a woman not knowing her place in the world and sleeping her way to the top of Charles II royal court is a disturbing fact to challenge his worldview of boys only having that right of sleeping their way to the top (of the Vatican's hierarchy) I would imagine. 

Where's a good old fashioned Republican cloth coated "Religious Liberty Task Force" when you need one? LOL

Inquirer 22 Nov 1947

Philly High School Possibly Named in Tribute to Father Coughlin and His Approval of German Actions at Kristallnacht

I had to wonder when I randomly ran into this looking at some other matter, what happened to the local girl's high school in Philly, when its name got changed from its original designation of "Northeast Catholic High School for Girls" to "Little Flower High School". Something and things along the timeline from October 1938 when building permits were issued in the original designated name to dedication on August 27th 1939, five days before the invasion of Poland and the beginning of war in Europe.

There was already in place a tradition of West Catholic High for Boys first followed by West Catholic High for Girls. Only four blocks apart near University City in west Philly.

Little Flower as the compliment female school to Northeast Catholic High School for Boys was three miles apart. (The Northeast still the edge of the burbs and farms in pre-War Philadelphia County). 

The working name on Little Flower may have been N.E.C.H. for girls but looking at the timeline I have to wonder about Dennis Dougherty and his still standing fatwa on the Ethnic Group the "ran Hollywood" still in place forbidding all Catholics in the AD of Philly from attending the cinema which he never rescinded. (Thank the Catholic Gawd that the good cardinal had a movie projection setup to view Hollywood movies in private in his 45-61 room (depending on estimates) mansion of his quaint home base surrounded by 10 acres on City Line Ave. in Philly. )

October the building permits:

And then Kristallnacht in November 9-10 and America's most powerful media voice of Father Charles Coughlin getting more racist to up his ratings the closer Europe crept toward War.

Charles E Coughlin

For years, Coughlin had publicly derided “international bankers,” a phrase that most of his listeners understood to mean Jewish bankers. In the days and weeks after Kristallnacht, Coughlin defended the state-sponsored violence of the Nazi regime, arguing that Kristallnacht was justified as retaliation for Jewish persecution of Christians. He explained to his listeners on November 20, 1938 that the “communistic government of Russia,” “the Lenins and Trotskys…atheistic Jews and Gentiles” had murdered more than 20 million Christians and had stolen “40 billion [dollars]…of Christian property.”

In a series of articles published in Social Justice during 1938, Coughlin lambasted “Jewish” financiers and their control over world politics, culminating with a story recounting his own version of the infamous 20th Century forgery, the so-called Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which purported to be minutes of meetings of Jewish leaders as they plotted to take over the world.

As Europe crept toward War. 

Philadelphia Inquirer 28 Aug 1939

On same page as LF dedication photo below.

Following two major radio stations in NYC, dropping Coughlin's broadcasts after his praise of Kristallnacht, followed by protests making the national papers of pro-Coughlin supporters outside NY radio staions, somewhere in that timeline between beginning of Construction of Northeast Catholic High School for Girls in October 1938 and the Dedication of Little Flower High School for Girls in August 1939, Cardinal Dougherty did a name change on the high school, perhaps out of sympathetic views shared with the American Papal Nuncio Cicognani and Father Charles Coughlin the head of the Radio League of the Little Flower, and his shrine in Michigan to Saint Therese of Lisieux, a recently canonized 24 year old ? "Doctor of the Church". 

Coincidence or devotion.

Wikipedia Commons

Shrine of the Little Flower Basilica

Charles Coughlin

Philadelphia Inquirer 28 Aug 1939

It is possible that Cardinal Dougherty was indeed devoted to the worship of the Little Flower saint but more likely he had to hedge a bet or a loan to Coughlin to build his cash cow shrine in Michigan, with the radio transmissions drying up with contributions. Better to have a local Wink. Nod. Michigan shrine reminder in Philly to back up offshore tax free loans to Royal Oak?

Famous Philly Lesbian Witch Hunt / Murder Trial in 1937-1938

Famous Philly Lesbian Witch Hunt / Murder Trial in 1937-1938

A Public Show Trial - Scripted like something straight out of the “The Children’s Hour” – 1938 “Murder Case” with local GOP politicians more concerned about people’s private sex lives rather than trying how to determine the facts surrounding the death of a child in a city run summer camp. 

How little things have (not/) changed in America in 80 years? 

Tale of MoyamensingPrison - X - (Cont'd 1 - Inquirer 28 Nov 1937)

Tale of MoyamensingPrison - X - (Cont'd 4 - Inquirer 19 Nov 1938)

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Come Home Cardinal Pell – the Authorities Want to Talk to You

Cardinal Pell hiding out in Rome, playing the I am too sick to travel card to avoid testifying in abuse cases in OZ. Kind of like Philly’s Cardinal Bevilacqua’s I am too sick to stand trial deal legal defense?

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1917 - Advertising - Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce

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Abp. Chaput’s Submissive Docile Obedient Celibate Homosexual Workshop At Pope Party September Philadelphia or the “New Homophiles”

"A Christian Dirce", by Henryk Siemieradzki.

(Public Domain)

There is something evil-ly sickening-ly cynical about  Abp. Charles Chaput who comes into the Philly AD to clean up the clean up of the Hierarchy Buggery Mess and announces changes and school and church closings in the inner city and imprimaturs it with the term that he is not doing this – that is the doing of a “Blue Commission” this or a “Blue Commission” that to justify the break-up, sale, and consolidation of securities through the sale of real estate for the greater glory of God, Chaput’s campaign for a red hat and oh yeah, the people (little people – very little people of God) in the once late great archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Gay Catholics Will Be Silenced DuringPope Francis' Philadelphia Visit

Homosexuals can attend a Catholic family congress in Philadelphia during Pope Francis' U.S. visit this year but won't be allowed to use it to attack Church teachings, the city's archbishop said on Thursday. "We don't want to provide a platform at the meeting for people to lobby for positions contrary to the life of our Church," said Archbishop Charles Chaput. 

The Catholic Church teaches homosexuality is not sinful but homosexual acts are. "We are not providing that kind of lobbying opportunity," he told a news conference presenting the September 22-27 congress known as the World Meeting of Families. Gay Catholic groups and families headed by gay Catholics had asked for an official presence at the gathering to present their view that homosexuals should be fully welcomed in the Church.  

The pope will attend the last two days of the Philadelphia meeting at the end of a trip that will take him to Cuba as well as New York and Washington. About 15,000 people from around the world are expected to attend the family congress to hear lectures and take part in workshops on family issues before the pope arrives to close the gathering.  

"We hope that everyone feels welcome and certainly people who have experienced same-sex attraction are welcome like everyone else," Chaput said.  

Bishop John McIntyre, also of Philadelphia, said the only event dedicated to gay issues at the congress will be one by Ron Belgau, a celibate gay Catholic and founder of the Spiritual Friendship Initiative. Belgau blogs and lectures about how Catholic gays can live by the Church's teaching.  

McIntyre said Belgau "will talk about his own coming to terms with his sexual orientation and the manner in which he embraced the teachings of the Church" and his mother will also speak. 

Something also sickeningly evilly from a gutter snipe bureaucrat like Chaput, son of an illegal French Canadian immigrant btw, and son of a native American mother with native born American status to come into the white world of east coast Philadelphia and wave a magic hand by “Chief Outta-Town” and tell Gays they have no place at the table at the world meeting of families. No place - not even to sweep the tourist made trash – like the untouchables of India - of a week-long activities and lectures by real Catholics obedient to their Church and not the Church of Gays who have no real church so to speak.

How does you define families and or a family Charles? Dad needed a green card and I got out at 13 to go to junior seminary to escape my ideal “family” experience? (A kid’s gotta eat – ya know.)

Reading some the of insane suedo social science that Celibate Loyal Catholic Homosexual “Spirityual Friendship” Ron Belgau is about to be unleashed at the Pope Fair or World Meeting of the “Family” reminds me of some throwback to trying to un-homosexual oneself into heterosexuality a la “doctor” Marcus Bachmann, macho man behind the genius and Christian backbone of lunatic fringe GOP goddess Michele Bachmann.

Ron Belgau is all over the place of the orthodox catholic and Christian blogosphere, trying to secure a niche and secure a steady income base from many non-profit tax dodge religious entities and preaching how only obedient celibate Gays can dare for any hope of a pat on the head from their local overseer bishop or have the slightest chance of Jesus’ salvation – he only died for some – don’t you know.

In this article below he blames the Abolition of Marriage not on gay marriage but no-fault civil divorce over the decades. That children don’t need parents or caregivers, that they need a mother (female) and a father (male). And that an abused mother along with a drunken physically abusive father is on paper the perfect Catholic or Christian growing grounds for children.

 The Abolition of Marriage

U have wonder if Ron will be given a real classroom or lecture hall in Philly to explain what holy Queers should be like or if cynical Chaput houses his sideshow in a tent, a freak peepshow, along the Benjamin Parkway in Philly. Lol

In another forum Crisis, Ron’s friends write articles of 90% praise and 10% critique of Belgau’s philosophy/propaganda. And then the following week or so Ron responds to the critique in this so called Plato like dialogue with his cronies also looking for lifetime employment preaching what gets the most gelt from the bishop masters of the Catholic treasury not of grace but of cash.

The most recent article in Crisis is by somebody about Nero as Patrol Saint of Gay Marriage. And like all homophobe’s denial of self, quoting the Roman historian Suetonius mentioning things about dirty little body parts and the acts of Nero’s castrated boyfriend/wife/lover in almost soft core porno fashion, the other half’s sexual activities are what bother conservative libertarians most about these gay types etc. 

I am getting the vapors thinking of Ron Belgau’s retort in the same magazine to illustrate how the author is right about the abominable sexual position stuff of Nero and Company and how to cure it with “celibate homosexual friendship in Christ”. (Puke!)

Saint Nero – Patron of Gay Marriage

That Ron Belgau does mention the loss of his Spiritual Friend Julie Rodgers in a twitter mention who had to resign her Celibate Homosexual counseling job recently at Wheaton College who probably reached a personal maturity and realization about her own Homosexuality and had to shrink from the delusional world in which she had existed for a decade or so, as one time co-founder of this Ron Belgau movement regarding “spiritual friendship”.

Wheaton’s‘celibate gay’ counselor resigns

That any Gay person on the fence about natural humanity and manufactured spirituality to park one’s psyche would have to enjoy emotional confusion or delusional uncertainty and over all general head game abuse to follow the Ron Belgau’s Catholic propaganda (Bullshit) that Chaput is dumping down his dirt shute to any crazies looking for respect at the World Meeting of Families or Pope Fair in Philly in late September.

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Changing American Demographics - St. Joan of Arc School Harrowgate Philadelphia - 1957

In a changing American demographic from white to moca, from urban to suburban, from blue collar to white collar and or pajama (work from home), the boomers have been on a ride of a lifetime.

Saint Joan of Arc in Harrowgate Philly is defunct. It as a building designed by famed British architect George A. Audsley as his last project, in his eighties, the building still functions as a “charter” school, whatever that is.

The church, the parish was officially dissolved in 2013, merged with 3 or 4 other ethnic enclave churches, just as much for lack of attendance and or interest in the ancient Christ myth as the fact that celibacy and a lack of numbers in the priesthood make serving in the sheep with good shepherds impossible. That and the AD of Philly had millions to pay for decades of corrupt buggery hidden from view etc. Needed to sell a lot of R/E.

In looking back this photo is the first grade class of boys circa 1957 and there is 62 kids reporting this day for the photo, probably the official - take your kids photo day marketing thing. The nuns, the catholics were always nickeling and dime-ing the inmates in order to finance and survive, getting their cut on the promotions, Chocolate Bars, Half and Half lottery tickets on Bingo night, even shoes at one point but rather unsuccessfully I might add. The Nuns, women married to Christ and their faith, devoted their lives to us children. For that I am grateful but somehow the picture looks strange to me. It came into view the other day on some Facebook page and the comments there reflected re-awaking to memories, of childhood connections reconnected across the vastness of America now where many of these children and their sisters, siblings now live.

There are probably ten or so kids not present, out sick with sniffles etc. in this photo.

My first grade class numbered in the nineties for students, the baby boom yet to peak, in a latter first grade class, my own.

They used to bolt two of these old cast iron and wood desks together and sit three of us across. If you took a few sick days, you lost your place in the three across temporary daily seating thing. Lost your pencils and boxes of cardboard letters and numbers used as a teaching aide too etc. Lost in the shuffle of life.

Have to wonder in retrospect what was the effect of the baby boom on class size in the local public schools. But for us factory working, Irish Catholics and Italians mostly in this photo, parochial school was the only way to go. 

No PTA meetings and you did what you were told. And if you got out of line with a little ADHD? That was what the wooden ruler, wooden chalk board pointer was for - to crack over your knuckles on break over your back to get your attention – to focus. That did happen once with the chalk board pointer but at a higher grade level, bigger boys etc., but luckily not to me. Sounds terrible. LOL. But considering the memories I see mentioned in comments on Facebook, few remember the discipline.

The only thing I notice greatly between then and now, besides the numbers thing, size of the class, physical size of the room, was how white lower middle factory working class Harrowgate was in 1957.  

The demographics, they are a changin’.

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Betsy Ross House Philadelphia - 1900

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Saint Tammany - Patron Saint of America - Philadelphia

Marker - Tamanend (Tammany) 

In honor of the contributions of Native American Indians—the ancestors, the elders, this generation, and the generations to come—this sculpture commemorates Tamanend, a Sakima, of the Lenni-Lenape nation who resided in the Delaware Valley when Philadelphia, or “Coaquannock” was established.  

Tamanend stands on a turtle, which represents Mother Earth. The eagle, a revered messenger of the Great Spirit has a wampum belt in its grasp. This belt recognizes the friendship treaty under the Shackamaxon Elm between William Penn (“Mikwon”), Tamanend (“the Affable One”) and other leaders of the Lenni-Lenape nation. It reads—“to live in peace as long as the waters run in the rivers and creeks and as long as the stars and moon endure.” 

Tamanend or Tammany

…many folk legends surrounded Tamanend and his fame assumed mythical proportions among the people of Philadelphia, who began to call him "King Tammany," "Saint Tammany," and the "Patron Saint of America." The people of Philadelphia also organized a Tammany society and an annual Tammany festival. These traditions soon spread across America. The reason for Tammany's popular status can be attributed to the need that patriotic colonists had to express a distinct "American" identity, in place of their former European nationalities. Tammany, an American Indian, provided an apt symbol for patriotic Americans to identify with. 

Because of Philadelphia's political significance during the founding of the United States of America, Tammany soon became a national symbol throughout much of the newly formed country. (Tammany Hall)

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Porto Rico Soda Philadelphia - Orange Blossom

Porto Rico Pale Dry Company, Phila., 1950s

"Hey Chico, make mine Porto Rico"

It's "Soda-licious"

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Bicentennial Bell Headed for the Scrap Heap?

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The Queen's Bell and or the Bicentennial Bell. (above)

http://articles.philly.com/2009-07-13/news/25288615_1_liberty-bell-arc-american-revolution-center

It's Jubilee time in Britain and I recall a gift from their Monarch and the Brits to the Yanks for the Bicentennial in 1976.

The Bicentennial Bell BTW is an exact sized replica of the Liberty Bell and cast in the same foundry in London as the Liberty Bell, Whitechapel Foundry http://www.whitechapelbellfoundry.co.uk/.  

They still have some dirty industrial stuff over there in Britain.  Not everything in the world is an abstract computer services industry thing like in America.  People still get their hands dirty making a living in other parts of the world unlike all our debt-ridden  cookie cutter college grads etc.

The above three year old newspaper article is all the news I could find of the fate of a bell that was supposed to ring on special public occasions and the odd British Coronation.

Turns out, it is not functioning with a broken automated bell clapper for the past seven years.  The U.S. Parks Department does not have the funds to fix it etc.  The tower and building it is housed in is obsolete and will likely be torn down and rebuilt as yet another Revolution museum in the City of Brotherly Love.

It might be a good idea to send the bell around the country as a gesture of good will to our only ally left in Europe etc.  I doubt it can be anonymously sent back to Windsor Castle. They might notice.  It has writing on it. I think that country can still read. 

Raiders of the Lost Ark storage? Probably.  And or the scrap heap?  (They got the statue of Diana by St. Gaudens in the Philadelphia Museum of Art off a scrap heap BTW.)  Hope the next owner of the bell appreciates it more than the present history slackdivists in Philly.

For a city like Philly that claims to be so into history, its recent history is totally ignored.  A grand gesture and a gift from a direct descendent of King George III, out last king, and it gets a present day yawn. Ho hum. 

(Above) Queen Elizabeth II - Dedication of Bicentennial Bell - Philadelphia - July 6, 1976

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Changing Face of America's Newspapers - Philadelphia Inquirer

By chance I ran into the fact that the Iconic Philadelphia Inquirer Building in downtown Philly has been sold and the newspaper itself and its entire staff are moving to one floor of another downtown structure.

It kind of visualizes how the age of computers and the Internet has shrunk the need for bodies and space to deliver a much smaller product - an American newspaper.

The white clad stone eighty year old landmark and space behind it for several blocks is planned to become a hotel and casino.  Ain't that something?

The present American Town Square is perhaps no longer recognizable to an older generation.

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Pennies for Poor Richard - Ben Franklin's Grave - Philadelphia

Pennies on Ben Franklin's grave.  A Philadelphia tradition.  Pennies and nickels are for Poor Richard.

Grave located by a fence in a brick wall, 5th and Arch Sts. Philadelphia, of Christ Church cemetery. 

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Graff House - Replica - 7th and Market - Philadelphia

Graff House, a modern replica of the house where Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in rented rooms on the second floor. 

Autodidactic – George Ashdown Audsley

Japanese Design

Ran into the term “autodidact” to describe the lifetime education, self-education of the late George Romney.  Never heard or read the term before.  I am aware of people in earlier times who educated themselves with books such as Franklin, Lincoln, Truman who had little formal education beyond the basics.

World Museum Liverpool

I know that many architects before the term and function got commoditized as a University only taught profession in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century were self-taught.  One example is the British architect George Ashdown Audsley who designed the skyscraper 11 Broadway in 1896 in New York City as well as pursued a self-taught interest in the music of organs and designed the world famous Wanamaker Organ in Philadelphia. 

11 Broadway NYC

Perhaps there is too much official Ivy League type education these days that seems more like a product built in a factory than a pathway to individual pursuits, intellect and common sense design and function.

Autodidacticism

Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) is self-directed learning. In a sense, autodidacticism is "learning on your own" or "by yourself", and an autodidact is a self-teacher.

Autodidacticism is a contemplative, absorptive procession. Some autodidacts spend a great deal of time reviewing the resources of libraries and educational websites. One may become an autodidact at nearly any point in one's life. While some may have been informed in a conventional manner in a particular field, they may choose to inform themselves in other, often unrelated areas.

Autodidactism is only one facet of learning, and is usually complemented by learning in formal and informal spaces: from classrooms to other social settings. Many autodidacts seek instruction and guidance from experts, friends, teachers, parents, siblings, and community.

Joan of Arc School Harrowgate Philadelphia

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