He doesn't say too much about Linton Hall; it is mentioned mostly only on three pages,
pages 41 -43 of his autobiography, but what little he says makes it sound as bad as the Linton Hall I attended a quarter century after he did. The book also has a couple of photos of John and other cadets in their dress uniform, which looks just like our uniform did. I guess not much changed over so many years.
John entered Linton Hall in the Fall of 1942, shortly after his seventh birthday, and stayed there for four years, through Spring of 1946, just before turning eleven. Sent there because his father had alcohol problems and his mother was at work from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (including commuting) he was entrusted to the nuns at Linton Hall.
"I hated the place," he says, even though he earned good grades, made many friends, and played sports.
The current building had not yet been built, and the cadets slept in bunk beds. Shortly after he arrived, his bunkmate told him that when the nuns take cadets to the office to beat them, "they do it to you naked." John misunderstood, thinking it was the nuns who were naked. As funny as that is, it is still awful that a defenseless seven year old would be beaten by adults.
Nuns watched the boys shower back then, too. "Nuns watched us take showers to screen us for [homosexuals.] Of course, that just flushed them out to the gym, the bedrooms, and the woods," he says. If I understand this correctly, it is extremely disturbing that there would have been sexual activity between cadets, especially in an environment with such an age disparity and with officers with so much power. I must say that I never heard any rumors of such activities while I was at Linton Hall Military School.
The brightest aspect of his time there was his mother's weekly visits on Sunday afternoons, when she would take the train from D.C. and then a bus provided by the school. She always brought a picnic lunch, and John "lived for those picnics" and the few hours when he could "forget the inspections and the beatings."
A couple of years after John Phillips left Linton Hall Military School, and was attending a Junior High parochial school, a nun asked him why his parents didn't come to parent-teacher conferences, and John replied that it was because they worked very hard. "No, John, it's because they don't really love you," answered the nun. He slapped her across the cheek.
Had John stayed at Linton Hall, he would have graduated around 1949. I am in contact with three alumni who attended Linton Hall Military School during the 1940s, and I will ask them to comment on conditions there.
Source: Phillips, John Papa John - An Autobiography Doubleday & Co. 1986 (hardcover) pages 41-43. Also published in paperback by Dell in 1987
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Read more in my two books: Linton Hall Military School Memories: One Cadet's Memoir" and "Linton Hall Military School Memories Volume 2."
The first volume is available only from amazon.com (or for shipments to Mexico, amazon.com.mx) The second volume (either English or Spanish version is available on Amazon as well as barnesandnoble.com and walmart.com in the US. In Mexico, it's available from either amazon.com.mx or lulu.com. Prices to Mexico may be shown in Mexican pesos.-------
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ReplyDeleteToday, sister mary david, max the commandant, bill, sisters jean marie (the nurse),the big fat nun and the dwarf would be in jail...
ReplyDeleteSo much sadness, perpetrated by representatives of the Catholic Church! I would love to discover what those, ladies in black, truly accomplished. I’m certain they did well financially. However, I equally doubt, that if ever a study was conducted to see how things worked out for the children, sent to their “military school” turned out, the findings would be deplorable. I’m not saying that the blame for the boys who went bad, are solely the nun’s fault, but I would bet, the percentage of kids who struggled w drugs, alcohol, personality disorders and other negative characteristics is extremely high. God knows however and despite serving two horrible years at the school, which sadly stressed my parents finances, I still have my faith in a God that will handle things justly for all of us one day. I’ve never went back to that “shithole” known as Linton Hall Military School despite the fact that I lived in the area for three years as an adult. I would however wish there was a way to track the outcome of the lives of the boys who went to the school. It would certainly give indication on what the school really did behind the smiling faces, mentioned above, in the school’s marketing program.
ReplyDeleteDear Anonymous [unfortunately]:
DeleteIf I may posit myself as a representative survivor of LHMS of five bleak fears, 45-49, I must confess that I have no idea why I have evolved into what I have. I have never smoked a cigarette or tasted tobacco in any form, never taken a drug not prescribed by a physician or a dentist, and I detest the flavor of alcohol. Sacramental wine disgusts me.
Any of the many adverse criticisms from others of LHMS I have read can be found in fact; all of which can be confirmed by someone. Just why I am not a hater of women, a wife beater, an ill-tempered parent, or some other variant of sociopath I simply can not explain.
But much of what I was able to overcome will be dealt with in my forthcoming autobiography.
What does not kill me makes me stronger. Friedrich Nietsche
André M. Smith
N.B. I had inadvertently omitted my ID from my foregoing submission.
ReplyDelete