.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.
.
