When Ron Caputo attended St. Pat’s, the classes were still doubled up, but growing larger.  There were about 20 eighth graders, for example, when he graduated in 1953.  In addition to crediting St. Pat’s with the firm foundation he has in his faith today, Ron says he owes all the discipline he has today to the nuns. 

“I have good memories of all of them.  They were great teachers — every one of them.  I firmly believe I am successful today because I went to Catholic school.”

The nuns were very religious, too, and scared you to death if you didn’t go to Mass, Ron recalls.  Thus inspired never to miss Mass as a child, he still never misses Mass today, except in extreme circumstances.

Ron’s faith is all the stronger for having served as an altar boy for two or three years.  Father Phillips was pastor and Father Daly was his assistant during these years.  They were great, he remembers.

“Being an altar boy had an impact on you,” he says, adding that the close relationship he has with God is a result of his Catholic education. 

Ron attended Salesianum High School in ninth grade, then transferred to Kennett, after which he attended Goldey Beacom College, earning a degree in accounting.  Afterwards, he worked as an agent for State Farm for 40 years — just a block away from St. Pat’s School, where it all began.

Ron’s faith got a boost in 1963 when he attended a most inspiring weekend at Malvern Retreat House.  He has made the retreat every year since then, his growing faith sustaining him through the toughest part of his life when his wife Joan died of cancer in 1983, leaving him with four children to raise. 

“God knows where I would have ended up without my faith.”