Prayer question for Catholics who attended grammar school in the 1950s and earlier

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SMHW

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For those of you who attended Catholic Schools and/or CCD prior to the 1960s, I’d like to know if you prayed the rosary, and other Catholic prayers in English, in Latin, or in some other language? Did it depend on whether you were at school, at home, in a non-liturgical Church setting, or someplace else?

I am mostly wondering about those who grew up in English speaking families but I’d love to hear from those who grew up in non-English speaking places at well.

Please mention the general area where you grew up.
 
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I’m not old enough, but my mother and many of her relatives were in Catholic school during the 30s, 40s and 50s in the USA. Everyone in her family was a Native English speaker (Irish-American). Nobody ever prayed the Rosary in Latin anywhere. I’m quite sure neither Mom nor any of her relatives could have said the Hail Mary in Latin beyond “Ave Maria”. They did pray the Mass responses in Latin, at Church, read from a missal.
 
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SMHW said:
For those of you who attended Catholic Schools and/or CCD prior to the 1960s, I’d like to know if you prayed the rosary, and other Catholic prayers in English, in Latin, or in some other language? Did it depend on whether you were at school, at home, in a non-liturgical Church setting, or someplace else?

I am mostly wondering about those who grew up in English speaking families but I’d love to hear from those who grew up in non-English speaking places at well.

Please mention the general area where you grew up.
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Not my experience–but I remember listening to a conversation of my very diverse immigrant neighbors the Polish couple both said they would pray in Polish at home and Latin at church. However, my Irish neighbor always prayed in Latin, whereas my Italian neighbor rarely used Latin and always prayed in Italian even during Mass. At one point I wanted to know the Hail Mary in every language. I was a weird kid.
 
Having attended Catholic grammar school & high school; I was taught to pray the prayers in both Latin & English by both the Nuns & family.
 
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Honestly, most Italian natives can understand basic Latin… Italian is just Latin, slightly changed and evolved over the centuries.
 
English in home and in school. I have vague memories of musical presentations of those prayers in Latin.
 
My mother, who attended school in the 1930s and 1940s, says the same; they were taught in Latin and in English, and at home the older family members prayed silently in German while the younger ones prayed in English. She was always annoyed that because of WW2 the family had decided it was better NOT to speak in German at home and so she never learned as a youngster!
 
My mother was educated at a monastery school (Ursuline nuns) and they prayed it in german. Ave Maria also, but it was also taught in latin.
 
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Catholic grammar school 1952-1960. English prayers only, although we were taught some Latin hymns.
 
Not I, but when my parents went to school in the 50s they said prayers in English. My uncles (on both sides of my family), however, were altar boys - they learned Latin prayers. My mother is from New Britain, Connecticut, and my father is from the Bronx, New York.
 
I was in Catholic school in the 50’s & 60’s in the Philadelphia area. We were taught many prayers in both Latin & English, esp. prayers used in the Mass and the Pater Noster and Ave Maria. We prayed the rosary every day in school after lunch break & we always prayed it in English. At home I said my prayers in English. My family never prayed together as a family. If we had, it would have been in English.
 
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I was born in 1951 and went to Catholic School with Sisters of the Presentation. It was mostly an Irish parish and we prayed the Rosary and other prayers in English.

The Mass of course was the TLM, and we children were taught to sing the hymns in Greek and Latin.

My parents spoke French and only knew how to say the Rosary in French.

So when we prayed as a family, they had each of us children pray one decade in English.

Jim
 
Did you use to wear your rosary hooked into the belt loops of your uniform and dream of being a nun? (Northeast Philly here!)
 
Well . . . I never wanted to be a nun (shame on me!) and even though I’m trying very hard to think back to those days, I can’t remember if we hooked our rosaries on our uniform belts. I know we HAD to have done something and that sounds reasonable. (Southwest Philly girl here!)
 
Maximilian75 said:
Honestly, most Italian natives can understand basic Latin… Italian is just Latin, slightly changed and evolved over the centuries.
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Pretty much. I’ve spent quite a bit of time at Sant’ Anselmo (seat of the Benedictines and also a pontifical atheneum). They pray Lauds and Mass in Italian, and Sext, Vespers and Compline in Latin, I pray the LOTH daily in Latin and am a native French speaker. I had no trouble following the Italian,
 
Yes, my dad took my brother and me a few times but it was too cold and rowdy. (I don’t like the Mummers). Did you every get to go to the Mummers Parade?

Did you have a chapel veil and a bobby pin in a little case that you carried with you everywhere just in case?
 
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I went a couple of times when I was a kid. We had to move away in the 70s (WAHHHHHHHH) but I still talk to friends and family there regularly.
Yes, a veil and bobby pins plus we always had the little plastic rainbonnets that would do in a pinch! I still love wearing hats and veils. Especially now. In the old days my hair was thick and my waist was thin. Now it’s just the opposite!
 
We moved away to the beautiful NJ suburbs in the mid-60’s and half of my new friends had moved there from Northeast Philly. 😀

Yes to the plastic rain bonnets along with penny loafers and one year we all had to have saddle shoes but they had to be brown & tan not black & white (no white socks EVER), hand made ribbon neckties we wore at the neck of our uniforms that changed color depending on the month and of course the nuns really did warn us against wearing patent leather shoes. 🤣🤣 Ah. . . the memories!
 
I’ll cherish the memories. I had Sisters of Mercy; they shortened the habits but didn’t do away with them when I was in 8th grade and it was like, “Nuns with legs? Ewwww” But that’s still better than the polyester pantsuits a couple years later, sigh.
 
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