The school year 1032-33 showed an enrollment of approximately nine hundred and forty students. Financial difficulties caused the closing of all Detroit public schools on May 26th of that year. In 1933, total grammar and high school enrollment at St. Cecilia's reached its largest number with one thousand and eighty-three pupils.
HIGH ACADEMIC STANDARDS
St. Cecilia's School enjoyed a fine academic reputation. The high school offered such courses as: Religion, English, Latin, Higher Mathematics, U.S. History, Modern History, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Geometry, Art Appreciation, Economics, Aeronautics, Bookkeeping, Shorthand and Typing. Music and Athletics also were given special emphasis, and such facilities as science lab, art room and gymnasium were provided to round out the school program.
In 1936, enrollment dropped below the thousand-mark to nine hundred and eighty-six. The school enrollment was maintained at approximately eight hundred and fifty to nine hundred and fifty students over the years from 1936 to 1967. But during the 1960's the high school had to be phased out because of financial difficulties. The last high school graduating class was that of 1969.
BISHOP GALLAGHER LAYS THE CORNERSTONE
The dinners, concerts, excursions, hard-time socials and even the fifteen thousand dollar bazaars held after the purchase of the church site in 1928, showed by their success the fine support the parish was prepared to give to make the new church a reality. Ground was broken on the Feast of the Assumption, August 15, 1929, and the cornerstone laid by Right Reverend Bishop Gallagher the following October 27th, the Feast of Christ the King.
FATHER FLEMING STUDIES ARCHITECTURE
Before
starting to build, Reverend Father Fleming had made a comprehensive study of
church architecture. With the help of a building committee, Mr. Antonio Di Nardo
was selected as architect and the W. E. Wood Company as the
builder. Father Fleming's preference in historic styles was the Romanesque
of southern France, and this mode was beautifully realized in the new church
which rose at Livernois and Stoepel.
The church was planned so that its main entrance, within its welcoming triple arch, would open on the most important thoroughfare - Livernois - with its sanctuary, sacristies and rectory being given the privacy of the less traveled street behind.
Continued
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