Daily Life and Routine

Though the typical daily activity schedule varied between facilities, the following schedule excerpted from the 1948 Vista Maria Handbook for students in Detroit, Michigan, may have been close to that observed by girls at  Carthage.

6:00 A.M. Rising

6:30 A. M. Mass

7:00 A.M. Breakfast

7:30 A.M. Duties as assigned and recreation

8:30 to 11:45 A.M. Academic subjects

12:00 to 1:00 P.M. Lunch and recreation

1:00 to 4:00 P.M. Vocational subjects (referred to as “employments”)

4:00 to 5:30 P.M. Recreation (Band practice 4:30 to 5:30 P.M.)

6:00 P.M. Dinner

8:00 P.M. Study hour

9:00 P.M. Bedtime

(cited in Phillips, Education for Girls in the House of the Good Shepherd, 1940-1980, p. 175, note 580, from Handbook in the Sisters of the Good Shepherd Archive)

The girls had age-appropriate housekeeping chores such as laundry and ironing, meal preparation and cooking, gardening, housecleaning, and sewing. (Phillips, p. 134)  Like most Good Shepherd schools, the Carthage facility operated a commercial laundry and sewed embroidered clothing to supplement its income. As at other rural institutions, its gardens and small animal farms provided food for the residents. The girls contributed manual labor as part of their re-education process. (Phillips, p. 21) "Commercial laundries in the Good Shepherd schools were progressively closed because the mandatory requirements for school attendance decreased the time available for the girls to work" (Phillips, p. 183) and this appears to have been the case at Carthage, though the date the commercial laundry closed is not known.