SLs

Editor’s Note: The following remembrance was prepared by Loretto Co-member Mercy Sister Alicia Zapata and Vicki Schwartz SL. It contains excerpts from Pearl’s autobiography, along with contributions from Mary Jean Friel CoL, Marian McAvoy SL and Marlene Spero SL. A recording of her funeral may be viewed here. In her autobiography written in 1980 Pearl…

Maureen Frances McCormack was born in St. Louis, the third of four daughters born to John Clement McCormack of Waukon, Iowa, and Ozzara Deluhery of Los Angeles. Maureen’s older sisters, Janet and Jean, were twins barely a year older than Maureen; their youngest sister Mary Beth arrived six years after Maureen. Although Maureen was baptized…

(What follows is the reflection, “The Susan I Have Known,” as told to Mary Louise Denny SL “over the years.”) For some 30 years I have been blessed knowing Susan. And the Susan I knew was a complicated and incredibly simple woman. The Susan I knew was witty, tender, artistic and terribly, terribly honest. Susan…

The following is Maureen Smith’s autobiography, dated Sept. 7, 2018: I was born and lived, until moving to the Loretto Motherhouse, in my family home in Schenectady, N.Y. On my 87th birthday, my niece gave me my Dad’s diary, which was stored in a box with other family treasures since the death of my Sister…

The first words of Dolores Kelledy’s 1976 autobiography go right to the heart of the matter: “I became interested in the Sisters of Loretto while attending elementary school in the Sacred Heart Parish. The Lorettines there portrayed such a friendly spirit, both in the convent and in the school, that I choose to become one…

Mary Peter Bruce was the eldest daughter of James H. Bruce and Dolores Novoa, known as Lola.  They named her Dolores Patricia and called her Patsy. She had three siblings, Lillian, Jimmy and Johnny, many cousins in Mexico and in the United States, plus Celia, a young girl whose mother had died, Mary Peter said,…

Mary Frances Lottes was born into what she describes as “a secure and happy life in a large family during the Depression years.”  She was the fourth child of Arthur and Roberta Lottes, with Helen, Arthur, and Richard before her and Marge, Paul and Robert after her.  Her father was born in St. Mary, Mo.,…

In Granite City, Ill., at the height of the Depression, Martin Joseph Finneran and his wife Fannie Price Finneran welcomed their fifth and final child and named her Nancy Jane.  Before the end of the hard times the family had relocated to St. Louis, where Nancy attended kindergarten at Dozier School in the West End,…

Sister Kay Carlew wrote a brief introduction of herself for Loretto Magazine at the time of her Golden Jubilee in 2011.  We’ll start there but be warned: Kay left out many of the good parts, some of which I have added at the end, but most of which I leave to you —  Loretto members,…