When the Catholic Church Ran a Public School in Small-Town Texas

When phone scammers call 78-year-old Wanda Ray, she likes to keep them on the line until they break. One call, her husband, John, tells me, lasted an hour. “Sharp” and “sassy” are understatements. (“You can tell I’m sexy over the phone?” she sweetly said to one flustered would-be swindler who called her the latter, pretending to mishear.) Ray sports a tidy bouffant and even tidier memories of the comings and goings in Bremond, the small town 45 minutes southeast of Waco where she has spent her life. She calls John, who moved to Bremond over fifty years ago, a “newcomer.”When I arrive at their home on a Friday in January, Ray has gathered some documents on her kitchen counter for me to peruse. Dark wood…

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