Maryville Academy Alumni

Alumna recalls the memorable day when a 1953 bank robbery made Maryville part of the story.

Here’s her edited recollection.

“The day in question is when two men robbed the First National Bank of Wheeling. These men were driving down River Road after the robbery when they saw a cop car. Now the cops at the time had no idea that these men had just robbed a bank, but the robbers went into a state of panic and started speeding so the cop car took chase. The robbers jumped out of their car near the side drive by the rectory and ran through the school. They went up to the second floor, ran through Providence Hall and deposited a gun on the top shelf of my locker.

Later, when I reached up to get some socks that I had in a basket on the top shelf and felt this cold metal thing. When I took it out to my surprise it was a gun! I first threw the gun gently on the bed next to my locker and then wrapped the gun in my skirt. (Nice outfit in the pic, it was laundry day, and I didn’t have any clean clothes that day) and started going to find a nun to give the gun to. I was trailed by everyone nearby yelling, and we got into the stairwell and met Kay Kilgallon. Kay took the gun from me before I dropped it and it went off.

Then the photographers and reporters came. And as I was standing with Fr. Garrity, they asked me to point to where I found the gun on the shelf. I wasn’t sad at all that day, just bewildered. Later that afternoon I had to go to the infirmary to work, and Sister Gerard was praying on the sunporch and told me to go and dust mop the rooms. So I went to go down in the basement to get some mops when I could hear some guys talking and once in a while bang on something metal. Well, I froze.  I couldn’t get myself to go downstairs, so I kept going back to the nun, but she was busy praying. So I went back to the top of the stairs. I must have stood there for 1/2 hour too scared to go down because I could hear that someone was downstairs. I also knew that there was a tunnel going from the infirmary to the rectory, and I was sure the robbers where down there. Finally, I got the nerve to tell sister that there was noise coming from downstairs,and I was too afraid to go down there. She started to laugh and said she was sorry, she forgot to tell me that some plumbers where down there working on some pipes.

The FBI also wanted to talk to me, but I unfortunately touched the gun, most likely smearing the finger prints on the gun. A couple of times the FBI came back to talk to me, and I was always told to go to Fr. Halpin’s office to talk privately with them. I really couldn’t tell them anything. The last time the FBI came to school was about junior or senior year, which was about two or more years later. As far as I know, they never found the bank robbers.  The pictures of me with Fr. Garrity were in all the papers; the others pictures were not as big as the one here. Over the years someone gave me the 8 by 10 picture from the newspaper, on the back the date is Oct 1, 1953. I remember thinking they had my wrong age because I had just turned 14 in September. I also have a smaller picture dated the same day from “The American” newspaper, the large picture doesn’t say if it was the Tribune or Sun Times.” – Pat Morrissey Day