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Four local women who attended Mount St. Mary's Academy, an educational institution of St. Patrick's Church in Grass Valley, more than 70 years ago are receiving significant national media attention.
The friends, who are living together again after many years as residents of Atria Grass Valley, a senior living community in Sutton Way, appeared as guests on The Drew Barrymore Show, which airs today, May 24, at 11 a.m.
Union interviewed the women and published an article titled “Golden Girls,” which was picked up by the Associated Press.
The story was published in The Union on Nov. 16 of last year, and shortly thereafter Atria was contacted by Sacramento's KOVR about writing a story to air on Jan. 28.
After her KOVR article was published, Atria was contacted by Good Morning America, which aired a short segment on her on February 9th, and after that she was contacted by The Drew Barrymore Show, a daytime talk show hosted by the famous actress.
“They tried to fly the four of them to New York to do the show, but it was too much for the ladies, who are in their late 80s, so instead of flying them to New York, they sent a film crew to Grass Valley and filmed approximately 18 hours over three days in March,” Steve Crain, son of one of the women, wrote to The Union.
The four friends, Joan Harris (Schodolski), Mary Grace Tassone, Elsie Webb (Dixon) and Sylvia Crain (Hamill), will tell the story of what life was like for teenage girls in Grass Valley in the 1950s.
“There was a time when students would spend hours practicing their calligraphy, walk to the Boulevard Cafe on Mill Street after school to play the jukebox, or swim in Lake Olympia on long summer days,” Tassone told The Union.
Steve Crane said there had been plenty of other interest, including from British magazine The Mirror and an Instagram post by a group called The Female Quotient, which had more than 46,000 likes.
“My mom and her friends are having so much fun being 'celebs,' and I think we should thank you for that. Thank you so much!” Crain told Union's Marianne Bolsey, the original author of The Golden Girls.
