Wednesday, September 08, 1999
Soldier, postman, family man and now, a high school grad
BY CHRISTINE WOLFF
The Cincinnati Enquirer
ALEXANDRIA — It might seem Howard Fahey doesn't need the paper he worked so hard to get — that it's an empty symbol for a 74-year-old man who fought in a war, finished a career and raised a family.
He'd strongly disagree and proudly show off the Purcell High School diploma he received in August — a dream he chased for 56 years.
“It's something of pride for me, something I thought I would have earned,” said Mr. Fahey, of Alexandria.
World War II interrupted his senior year at East Walnut Hills Catholic high school, then an all-boys school. By Oct. 6, 1943, he was drafted into the Army.
On June 5, 1944 — the night his Purcell classmates graduated — “I was in England getting ready to go to Normandy” for the June 6 D-Day invasion, he said.
He landed at Normandy's Utah Beach 16 hours after the D-Day invasion June 6, 1944, with an Army Signal Corps support group in charge of delivering orders and official mail to troops in combat. His unit was pinned down for three weeks near the town of Caretan, often sleeping in foxholes under heavy shelling.
Discharged in 1945, he stayed in Europe for two years to work for the Army as a civilian, running the military post office at Nuremberg, Germany.
Through the next half-century, Mr. Fahey thought often about the lost diploma, but there wasn't time to remedy it. He and his wife, Evelyn, married in 1950 and had three children. He worked 32 years as a letter carrier at the U.S. Postal Service.
“(Classmates) always considered me as one of the Class of '44,” inviting him to reunions and monthly luncheons, said Mr. Fahey, still called “Dutch” by high school pals.
“But I always felt something was missing, so I went back,” he said.
Last Oct. 13, he enrolled in classes at Northern Kentucky University to prepare for the five-part test to receive his high school equivalency diploma. He studied 236 hours, learning about social studies, literature, science, writing, algebra, geometry, trigonometry.
“It was rough. I couldn't have done it without the classes,” he said, describing Glenna Mullen and Bonnie Thompson as “the greatest teachers in the world.”
“Whenever I got discouraged, they kept me going.”
He took the test this spring, passed it and received his equivalency diploma in June.
Since 1981, Purcell has been Purcell Marian High School, following a merger with the all-girls Marian High School. But officials found a Purcell diploma, made it out to Mr. Fahey and signed their names.
Today's students should know Mr. Fahey, Principal Jan Rich said.
He's been invited to speak to Purcell Marian's history classes, to tell about his World War II role, the promotions he missed and disappointments he faced because he had no diploma, and his determination to get one. “If I can convince one kid to stay in school, it will be worth it,” he said.
Mr. Fahey “sacrificed what students have now so that they could have it,” Ms. Rich said. “And, in spite of that, his education was so important to him that he pursued the diploma so he could be a full-fledged member of the Purcell Marian family. That is a very important message.”
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