Snoopy in the Archives

An article in Sister Ann David Naeger’s newsletter “Our Days at Loretto Motherhouse” dated August 31, 2015 tells the story behind an original Charles Schulz Snoopy cartoon housed in the Loretto Archives. The cartoon features Schulz’s handwritten caption, “I can spell Rorschach and logophile and arachibutyrophobia, but I can’t spell how WONDERFUL Sister Judith is!”

FRANCES MARY BROWN, the eldest of four, was born October 30, 1922, in Elwood, Indiana, to Harold E. Brown, a steel-mill worker and Marie Agnes Harris Brown, a telephone operator and homemaker. The Browns moved to Pueblo, Colorado, in time for Frances to begin elementary school. The family cherished their stories; one of Frances’ favorites was about herself at a very young age. She wrote, “I was dressed up in white ruffles on an organdy dress, helping my father change the crankcase oil in the car. I dunked my little white dog into the heavy black oil, then hugged him to myself. My Dad thought the episode funny, my mother saw no humor, even years later.”

Frances worked her way through Loretto Academy in Santa Fe, New Mexico, earning a journalism scholarship to Loretto Heights College. After two years at the Heights, she wrote to Reverend Mother Edwarda, asking and receiving permission to join the Sisters of Loretto. Frances was received into the novitiate on April, 25, 1944, donning the habit and the name Sister Mary Judith by which she would be known the rest of her life.

Of her forty-year teaching career, Judith wrote, “Teaching was a thrill I enjoyed since third grade when I taught my dolls after school.” Perhaps Sister Mary Judith’s most renowned classroom accomplishment was her very successful and long-term work inspiring both boys and girls to be interested in words. Some of her students often met outside of class time to prepare for the Colorado/Wyoming Scripps Howard Spelling Bee. During various years, she sent three winners of that bee to the national spelling bee in Washington D.C.

In 1984, the parents of champion speller Scott Womack arranged to have Charles Schulz create an original drawing of Snoopy, the very special mascot in Sister Judith’s 90’s classroom. Schulz’s cartoon had the caption, “I can spell Rorschach and logophile and arachibutyrophobia, but I can’t spell how WONDERFUL Sister Judith is!”

At the age of 62, Sister Mary Judith changed her work and her place of residence. With Sister Genevieve Cavanaugh, she signed a contract with the Denver Archdiocesan Housing Committee to co administer St. Anthony Manor in Casper, Wyoming, a HUD subsidized apartment complex for low- income senior citizens. The two sisters worked for senior citizens in Wyoming until 2010 when they moved to Loretto Motherhouse Infirmary where Sister Mary Judith died at the age of 93 in her 72nd year as a Sister of Loretto. Her dear friend Sister Genevieve undertook the care of Snoopy until her own death in 2019, when the cherished cartoon came to the Archives for long term safe keeping.