11/8/24 - Friday Forget-Me-Nots by Jim Silcott

Photo Caption: First Grade Saints!

Dear Our Lady of Peace Family,

With our annual Open House this weekend on Sunday, November 10 from 12:30-2pm we begin plans for another school year, the 80th in school history. 

Our Lady of Peace started a trend eight years ago by having our Open House in November. Previously, only the Catholic high schools held their recruitment days this early. Now, all the schools in the Bishop Watterson feeder area are holding their days in November. The annual event to attract new students to our schools, especially in kindergarten, is essential to our continued viability. 

Registration for new students to the 2025-2026 school year starts on the 10th. We expect to be full or close to full in every grade next year. Currently, we forecast, besides kindergarten, to have openings in second, third and sixth grade only, although we encourage families to register for other grades if there happens to be an opening in other grades. The capacity for our school is 240 students. We are currently 230 students. 

My involvement with Our Lady of Peace goes back almost 40 years through a circuitous route. I had given up my job at Watterson for the 1986-87 school year to take a job as an English teacher in a private school just outside of London, England. My former wife and I were going to move there with our two daughters. My daughters could attend pre-school at my new PreK-12 school and my wife had the promise of a transfer with FedEx at Heathrow Airport. 

When we found out that we were to have a third child, our plans went awry. The London area had a high cost of living, and my teaching salary was on the order of about $15,000 a year. We could not afford to live on one salary. We had sold our home in Powell and I had already given up my job at Watterson for the coming school year. And so, on my 30th birthday, September 15, 1986, I had two young daughters, a baby on the way, no home and no job. 

I ended up working four jobs that year: one period a day teaching math at Bishop Hartley in the morning, two periods a day teaching English and Journalism at Bishop Ready in the afternoon, supervising student teachers at Ohio State in between and working as a bartender at DaVinci’s when they had their big restaurant at Henderson and Reed Road in the evening and weekends. 

Somehow, we managed financially, and we had money from the sale of our home to purchase a new one in the late fall after the birth of our son, Braden. We found an old fixer upper at 47 E. Beaumont Road for $79,000. It was blocks from Our Lady of Peace. Father, later to be Monsignor, Ken Grimes was the pastor. I knew him through my association as a teacher at Bishop Watterson where he had served as principal. We went to church that first Sunday after moving in. I spoke with Father Grimes and told him we were joining his parish. 

That year was a hard one. My wife went back to work at FedEx in Columbus, and I worked my four jobs. But as we settled into our Beechwold neighborhood, we found a home on Beaumont and at OLP. 

I got my job back at Watterson the following school year and walked to work. My oldest daughter, Lauren, started in first grade here in 1988, Bethany in 1990 and Braden in 1993.

I had moved around a lot as a kid and had attended four elementary schools in three different states because of my dad’s job. I was proud that my children went through eight years of elementary school at OLP (there was no Kindergarten then) and four years at Bishop Watterson. We all have deep roots and dear friends through our association with the parish and school. Braden now has his three children here. 

Our Lady of Peace has been a blessing to my family. I know it has been a blessing for many other families that came before mine and many families since. I pray that it will be for new families and new children as well. 

Jim Silcott