About Our School

Emil J. Shihadeh was born in Bryn Mawr, PA, on June 17, 1935 to Jacob Harris Shihadeh and Fadwa Atallah Shihadeh. Jacob came to the United States in 1906 at age 19 from Palestine seeking opportunity. He served in the U.S. Army in World War I. After the war, he returned to Palestine to marry and brought his wife Fadwa back in 1925.

Emil was the youngest of three sons. An accomplished wrestler and gymnast, Emil’s interests included carpentry, metal work, photography and music. The day after graduating from Lower Merion High School, Emil enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. His four-year tour of duty as an airplane mechanic included posts in New York, Texas, Greenland, and England, places he photographed extensively.

Honorably discharged, he began his civilian career selling welding supplies and teaching customers welding techniques. It was these exchanges that inspired Emil to pursue a teaching career, attending classes at night to earn his B. A. in Education from Temple University. For the next several decades, Emil taught metal fabrication at the Marple Vocational Technical School and Delaware County Community College, among others.

Emil took great pride in the students who met his rigorous expectations and went on to very successful welding careers.

Grace Marie Rodgers was born on Tory Island, Ireland, on September 2, 1936 to Cormac and Nellie Rodgers. Tory Island is tiny, about 3 miles long and barely half a mile wide. She grew up speaking Gaelic, learned in a one-room schoolhouse, and worked taking care of children and tending sheep, cows and chickens. She travelled to mainland Ireland for high school at the age of 14. At 16, she graduated high school and worked in childcare and retail for the next several years.

At the age of 19, she immigrated to the United States, looking for her own American dream. Her first job as an au pair took her to Maine. She also tried hairdressing before setting her sights on the nursing field. Earning a nursing degree from Sacred Heart Hospital in Norristown, PA, she began her career there.

Emil and Grace met at a dance hall in Bryn Mawr, PA, in 1958. Months later, Emil spotted Grace walking to her nursing job and offered to give her a ride. Sadly, she turned him down. Undeterred, he waited until she finished her shift and again offered her a ride home. That time, she accepted. They got married and had three children—Karen, Sandra, and Edward.  Grace worked for decades as a nurse, caring for elderly and terminally ill patients in Pennsylvania before moving to Virginia to live with her three children after Emil died in 2014.