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back to assumption catholic high school after 50 years

Story and photos by LIZ QUIRIN
Messenger editor

On a warm sunny morning in late September, 50 years after they graduated from high school, a group of more than 20 men returned to their alma mater as part of their reunion celebration.
This time, instead of passing through the front doors of Assumption High School in East St. Louis under the watchful eyes of the Brothers of Mary, each person signed in, walked through a metal detector, gave up the cell phone and agreed not to take certain photographs at what is now Southwestern Illinois Correctional Center that opened for business in 1995.

Their school had become a minimum security prison. A new entrance had been added; classrooms had become dormitories with bunk beds for inmates; the brothers’ quarters were now used in the trustee system; a new vocational building had been added.

The present warden, Jim Davidson, also graduated from Assumption in 1968. He joined the group for the tour, and made sure the grads saw how the school had been transformed.
The former school houses 671 inmates, all of them with drug-related crimes or short sentences left to serve. “They have to earn their way here,” Davidson said.

The correctional center provides drug therapy and educational programs for inmates.
In the fall of 1953, the incoming freshmen would be the first class to attend all four years of high school at Assumption, the school having just opened in the spring of 1953.

Today, walking the halls, it wasn’t the same, yet the gymnasium was still the gym; the cafeteria still served food; and the halls felt so familiar.

“The gym has changed very little,” 1957 graduate, Greg Howell said. “The hallway we entered at the end of the tour is memorable to me. I once felt a pressing need for confession, and I said something to a priest that was passing me in that hall, and we had confession right there on the spot.”

Howell said he has “wonderful memories” of Assumption. “The dances, the brothers, the discipline were all positives,” he said.
Another 1957 graduate, Terry Delaney, remembers his time at the school as well. A star athlete, he played varsity baseball, basketball and football all four years at Assumption.

Describing himself as the “class clown,” he said the faculty — brothers, priests and laymen — taught him discipline.
Cherishing his years at Assumption, Delaney said he  became active in the school’s alumni, working to keep the athletic programs running.

The school closed in 1989, but Delaney didn’t give up on  his memories or his dreams that the school could one day again play an important part in the city’s economy.

In the meantime, Delaney pursued a career in law enforcement on the local and state level, eventually becoming active as an investigator in prison crimes.

At the time, then Illinois Gov. Jim Thompson, wanted to build more prisons, but Delaney said he “saw Assumption as a perfect match to become a correctional center.”

The site fit the criteria needed for a prison: easy access to the interstate system, close proximity to a hospital and not in a flood plain. Delaney said he “reluctantly agreed” to be the prison’s first warden on loan from the state police.
It looked to him like a “perfect fit,” and everything was moving forward with asbestos abatement under way and the project 65 percent finished, ahead of schedule and under budget.

The state administration changed, and the project was stopped. Delaney went back to work for the state police. “I was crushed,” he said.

With time to think about what happened, Delaney said: “I knew it had to come back; it was a perfect match for corrections.”

Delaney was right, and the project was finished in 1994 and opened its doors in 1995 as the only prison in the state devoted to drug rehabilitation.

While the high school had indeed become a prison, “it might be saving some of these people,” Delaney said.
The school has again become a place for positive changes to take place.
“I know it is great joke material about the school becoming a prison, but I found its conversion to be a positive experience,” Howell said. “The building lives on, and the work they accomplish there now is outstanding in terms of community service and value.”