.God bless their little hearts American Catholic baby boomers (and about a 1/2 generation before the boomers) will remember the magazine TREASURE CHEST. It was only sold in Catholic grade schools. It was published from 1946 until the early 1970s. It was essentially a Catholic oriented comic book. The Adventures of Chuck White was a perennial serial comic. The comic also had many stories of interest to Catholic youth, or stories with a Catholic twist. And they often had items of general interest.
Some kind folks at American Catholic History Research Center at Catholic University of America, decided that it was a great idea to scan in each and every page of Treasure Chest from 1946-1963. I started reading regularly the year after that. [Dang, I wish they had 64-65, I never DID find out how one serial episode ended that year, because we moved!] But I am very grateful to see all that went on before! For instance, a while back (before I started blogging) - I read the first two years worth of the Chuck White series. I had no idea he was a convert! The very first issue starts in the spring. It came out every other week from Sept - June, as a rule. It was a real treat.
See here for the story of the 1st Catholic Mass in the English speaking part of what was to become the US or here for a story about Mother Cabrini, or here for the ubiquitous Chuck White. [Sometimes the server goes down for maintenence, so don't let it bug you if you are trying to read it later at night and it's not connecting.]
I feel sorry today's kids miss out. The sort of thing we got in Treasure Chest was often just plain fun, but it reinforced/supplemented the lessons we got in school (or added to them!) and bolstered our home training as well.
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3 comments:
i don't think we have anything like that now..it's a shame..
Yeah, it is. Those drop down menus off the main page are well organized by the way. If you take a look under "Subject" you'll find all manner of things - from explanations about the parts of the Mass to lives of the saints, articles about US history, and science articles of general interest (what makes your car work), it also had puzzles, advice columns, short fiction stories (usually with some moral lesson to impart ) A subscription was fairly inexpensive. Every two weeks sister would hand them out before dismissal for the day, and it was a real treat. I did, in the early 80s run across a comic book of the life of JPII. I wish someone would revive the concept.
I've never seen these. I went to public school though! Will have to check them out. Maybe I can print them for my kids.
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