Though it has been a couple of years since I was at Fenwick, it is a good time to write this letter because most of the rumors have probably been stated. Fenwick is a business, but not an industrial concern. When you work with students for some 50 years and every year some leave and others come, and you are suddenly gone, there will be rumors and idle gossip.
I wish there was some way to thank the thousands of students and parents and friends of Fenwick that my wife and I have met, worked with at school affairs, and socialized with all these years. Words have not been created to adequately express my thanks. The old saying, “The eyeball is too close to the bladder” summarizes my feelings. There is not a week, or sometimes even a day, in which I am not reminded of the influence Fenwick had on our life. Fenwick was our life. My wife would tell everyone that only John looked forward to Monday.
Greater than the influence on our life, Fenwick has been a source of humility for me as I have been so fortunate to be a part of the lives of men and women who are the finest examples of what we are called to be. How proud I am to say I had that person in class, when you realize in both their personal and public life the example they have set for their children and for society.
When I left Fenwick, due to a “lack of position,” the many people who sent letters and other forms of communication should all be thanked as you can never know how much that uplifted us at that time. All of us have some problems, and this was a difficult time for us. My wife had a stroke some 12 years earlier, but in 2012 they found a non-treatable cancer. I had asked Fenwick to let me stay until she died; I was told not to tell her I was let go. I cannot explain the comfort this support provided.
Though, it was inexcusable that people running the school did not attend or send letters or cards of sympathy when she died — this was the observation of a former Dominican administrator — it was truly gratifying that three Fenwick people were on the altar for the funeral. Fr. LaPata said a beautiful Mass that the family will never forget.
Go Friars.
John Thallemer
Class of ’53