Comedy and Cuisine

The Cathedral, parish and school community continue to grow, and their campus expands with them. The convent is completed in 1928. As moving day nears, the children lobby for the sisters to move from the school on a weekday. It seems the students desire a day off. They get their wish. The sisters move into the convent on a weekday. A large number of older children help.

In 1928, Msgr. Joseph Rummel is chosen to succeed the late Archbishop Harty as bishop of Omaha.

A PTA is formed in April 1929. By fall, it has raised enough money to improve the school auditorium.

The grade school boys are running wild over their Catholic competitors. In 1929, for the fifth year in a row, they win the championship cup in track at the annual Knights of Columbus Field Day.
Religious Vacation School for non-St. Cecilia students begins in summer 1930. It attracts 19
children to the faith - and the school. They enroll at St. Cecilia in the fall.

School is dismissed for a week in September 1930 as the National Eucharistic Congress is held in Omaha, with many events at the Cathedral. Many students participate.

Another religious milestone for the school arrives in 1934. Two Jesuit priests, Fr. Kruger and Fr. McAuliffe, say their first Masses at the Cathedral. Both are graduates of St. Cecilia Elementary. Fr. Kruger is the first St. Cecilia’s graduate to be ordained a priest.

The school would go on, in its first 100 years, to produce 150 people with religious vocations, including many Dominican sisters. School records note numerous instances of alumnae “receiving the habit at Saint Clara.”

Another trend that would continue into the next millennium begins in this era. St. Cecilia students earn competitive scholarships to such Catholic high schools as Creighton Prep and Duchesne Academy, and to Catholic colleges.

In 1936, St. Cecilia becomes the largest parish in the Omaha diocese, with 1,000 families.