GUAM'S FIRST NURSERY

 

INFANT OF PRAGUE CATHOLIC NURSERY & KINDERGARTEN

Tå'i, Mangilao

Nurseries, pre-schools, kindergartens and day care centers abound on Guam today, a reflection of modern times when both parents work, or perhaps there is only a mom and she works, so someone needs to care for the little ones during working hours.

In the old days, most families were huge and multi-generational. There were more than enough grandmothers, single aunts, nieces and older sisters to care for the young.

But in 1952, the Mercy Sisters opened Guam's first nursery, where parents could drop off their pre-school children and the Sisters would care for them and begin to educate them.

CHRISTMAS PLAY AT INFANT OF PRAGUE

The Mercy Sisters had moved into their new convent in Tå'i, on church land next to Father Dueñas Memorial School and Seminary, in 1951. In 1952, Sister Redempta Thomas, a stateside Sister and Mercy superior for Guam, decided to open a nursery on land just down the hill from the Mercy convent. A nursery would provide the Sisters with extra income to meet their financial obligations for a rapidly increasing community. Not all the Sisters were inclined to teach in schools; some worked better with pre-school children. Guam was also changing. More parents by then were living in nuclear family houses, without the extended family around to help watch the children, so a nursery was helpful to the parents who could use that help. An early start in their child's education wasn't a bad idea, either.

A permanent concrete building was completed in 1959 which still remains, but it has been added to and improved more than once over the years.

LIFE AT TÅ'I NURSERY IN THE EARLY YEARS

Religion, of course, played a big role in the daily program at the nursery. Basic prayers were taught, as were religious songs, and many of them were in Chamorro. A number of parents were attracted to sending their children to Infant of Prague for this reason; to learn prayers and hymns and also in Chamorro. Religion was reinforced with devotional acts, like May Crownings, and through religious plays.

The children never went hungry. If a child wasn't given a lunch pail from home, the Sisters had an endless supply of Ichiban (ramen) noodles. Some of the Sisters who baked also treated the children with their cakes and other pastries.

So well-cared for were the children that even when parents forgot to pick up their child at the end of the day, they didn't panic when they remembered or got a call from the nursery. Their child was in good hands with the Sisters. One auntie was asked to take the child to the nursery and so she dropped him off, not realizing that the day was a public holiday and there was no school. The convent was just up the hill and a Sister called the parents to come fetch the child.

Many more nurseries and day care centers have popped up all over Guam now, but Infant of Prague is the first. Many of Guam's leaders in every type of career and profession got their first taste of school at Infant of Prague. The nursery is still going strong; full of children, with the Sisters and lay teachers continuing the mission of caring for the children, spiritually and in every other way.

WHO IS THE INFANT OF PRAGUE?

The Infant of Prague is a statue of the child Jesus which is venerated in the city of Prague in the Czech Republic. It has many claims of miraculous episodes in its history. The devotion was very popular in America in the 1950s when the nursery on Guam was established.

SI BRODIE

When I was young, Brodie meant "retarded."

Today, we don't even use the word "retarded" when referring to people who are less advanced in mental, physical or social development as is usual for their age. For many years now, the word "retarded" is considered offensive and is no longer used.

The reason why Brodie became Guam slang for the cognitively impaired is because a school named Brodie Memorial School was opened on Guam for just such students. If you went to Brodie, in those days, it meant you were a student with special needs.

By around the 1980s, the term Brodie was no longer in use. It died. I am glad it did.

Even the school named Brodie changed and, in 1994, it became a regular Department of Education elementary school as special needs students were placed in their own neighborhood or village schools and no longer at Brodie.

But, who was Brodie? Why was the school named after him?

SPECIAL NEEDS STUDENTS

By the late 1950s, a married couple who were public school teachers on Guam realized that there were no special services provided for students with special needs. The couple were referred to Cynthia Johnston Torres, a business woman, who might be able to provide a sewing machine, a typewriter and other things needed for students with special needs. Torres was inspired to pursue an education in California as a special education teacher. She later became a principal at Brodie.

Meanwhile, a group of women from Andersen Air Force Base organized to provide an education themselves to students with special needs. A lady named Ruth Paterson was selected to lead the cause. They secured a quonset hut from the government, located on Hospital Road (now Chalan San Antonio) in Tamuning. Since this was a private endeavor, everything had to be donated. The Marianas Association for Retarded Children was born.

The school's original quonset huts, damaged after Typhoon Karen in 1962

ENTER CHIEF BRODIE

Hearing about the need for help to make the quonset hut a suitable building for the school, a Chief Petty Officer of the Navy's Construction Battalion (or Seabees), Clifford Brodie, got in on the action. He, and his Seabee volunteers, donated their time and skill to building the school.

Just as that project was underway, a disaster hit Guam on September 19, 1960. A DC-6 plane carrying military personnel and dependents crashed on Barrigada Hill just after take-off. Eighty passengers and crew died, and fourteen survived.

Chief Brodie and his Seabees went up to the crash site to help with rescue efforts. They didn't give up on the school project either, and went back to building the school after helping with the plane crash rescue.

Perhaps it was all too strenuous for Clifford Brodie. He died in his sleep that night, on September 20, of a heart attack.

Crash Site on Barrigada Hill

When the school was finally finished, it was decided to name the school after Brodie, who had worked so hard to build the school. The school was opened on October 29, 1960.

New Chief Brodie Memorial School 1960s

WHO WAS BRODIE?

Clifford Brodie was born in 1911 in Arkansas. He enlisted in the US Navy in 1943. Prior to this, he had been a carpenter. It's no surprise, then, that he was placed in the Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) or Seabees.

After his death, his body was flown to Arkansas for burial at the Fort Smith National Cemetery. He was survived by his wife Muriel and two children.

CPO Clifford Brodie, USN

1911 - 1960

THE REST OF THE STORY

In 1963, Brodie Memorial School became part of the Department of Education. In 1965, the land adjacent John F. Kennedy High School was designated for the school and modern, concrete classrooms were built. In 1971, additional classrooms were built.

In 1994, the philosophy about special needs students had changed. It was now deemed better for them to be integrated in their own neighborhood or village schools. Brodie thus ceased being a special needs school and transitioned into a regular elementary school.

Today, the school enrolls children mainly from the Harmon Industrial Park area, and has the highest per capita number of non-Chamorro students in the public school system. It is a very vibrant, proud school with great spirit. The Seabees continue their long association with the school, whose mascot is the Bees.

I am so glad to know that the school, whose name we once used as kids to tease other people, is named after a wonderful human being who gave of himself to help others. May Chief Brodie Memorial School thrive and shine!