Of Anchorages

and the Sisters of St. Francis

I don’t know why I decided at the last minute to attend this reunion. I just felt strangely drawn to it, compelled by some unknown force to travel hundreds of miles to see old faces, swap lies and secretly compare the girths of our bellies.

I hate reunions.

And then someone said, “Here they come!” And we turned to see the seven women file in, beaming like saints, and I knew right then why I’d come. It was to see them.

These were the Sisters of St. Francis, my grade school teachers, the ones who held the chalk and slapped the rulers and drilled us in catechism and math and kept us in line as we marched off as soldiers toward the lunch line and the restroom and the future.

I was surprised to see that they were no longer 8 feet tall.

As we swarmed around them like reverential bees, they turned to greet us one by one. 

“How are you?” asked Sister Kate, and it sounded like she really wanted to know.  Her hair was short and white — befitting a woman in her 70s — but her smile was young and the clasp of her hand was firm. And her eyes … her eyes were intelligent and kind, just as I remembered them. They were all-knowing eyes.

“So nice to see you,” she said.

Before she became the principal of St. Beatrice Grade School, Sister Kate taught second grade. The math skills I learned in her class are still sharp enough that I can raise my hand and answer with confidence: Yes, Sister, that was 50 years ago.

The last time I’d seen the nuns, they were wearing habits, long black robes with wide white collars and head coverings. It occurred to me at some point that I had never before seen their hair. 

And their names have changed, too. Their religious order had long ago allowed them to reclaim their birth names, so Sister Francis became Sister Kate, and Sister Margaret Ann became Sister Frances, and the rest of us became confused.

There were other changes, too.

Sister Della, who taught fifth grade, isn’t a sister anymore.   Shortly after I left St. Bea’s, she left the convent. She’s known as Marie today, married with grown children and living in Utah. She remained close to her friends in the convent. Although she left the sisterhood, she said, she didn’t leave her sisters.

“There are sisters,” she said, “and then there are sisters.”  And some bonds are not easily broken.

And then there was Sister Frances, who taught eighth grade. Through the mysteries of science she is no longer 4 feet taller than I, but I was happy to discover that her smile had not diminished.  She was and always will be a favorite of mine.

As I introduced myself her eyes narrowed and she nodded, and there seemed to be a faint recollection. But that was unlikely, given the years and the thousand students who filled her grade books. And then I remembered a few stunts I’d pulled, and I figured it was probably good that she not remember everything.

But I remember. I remember all of it.

I remember sitting in a classroom with 60 or 70 obedient fellow students — that is no exaggeration — and all of us paying attention to a single commanding teacher as she pushed us through the lessons of the day.

I remember how to diagram a sentence.

I remember the parts of speech, although as an adult I have sometimes forgotten which ones to keep to myself. I remember the value of a neat notebook.

I remember the fluidity of their hands as they wrote in cursive on the blackboard and their patience as I struggled with the ever-tricky capital “F.” They instilled a love of history, a respect for the physical sciences and a fear of missed deadlines. And I remember they taught me to face downwind when clapping erasers together.

But the most important lessons went beyond the rote and repetition, the readin’, ’ritin’ and ’rithmetic. These women provided stability beyond the family. They reinforced what I was being told at home. They taught me there was an order to the universe, that there was a proper way to conduct oneself, and that right and wrong were tangible things. 

Before I left town, I stopped at St. Beatrice.  I knew it would be a bittersweet visit. Declining enrollment, a reflection of the economy and the neighborhood’s changing demographics, had forced the diocese to close the school. The last classes were held in the spring, and the sound of children’s voices is but a faint echo on Wagner Avenue this fall.

The doors were locked, but I could see through the windows into the darkened halls and rooms where chairs and desks were piled atop each other and where cold, unplugged computers were pushed against the wall.

Taped to the window was a sign that read: “Bingo canceled tonight due to vandalism.”

  

The reunion was held on the weekend the nation mourned the death of Walter Cronkite, the most trusted man in America. In his eulogy, Ted Koppel said Cronkite was the man for whom the term “news anchor” was invented. Koppel expanded the analogy to argue that Cronkite was an anchor for our entire culture, too. Throughout the 1960s and ’70s we checked in with Uncle Walter every evening, and no matter how terrible the news, he made us feel that it was going to be OK.

I feel the same about the Sisters of St. Francis.  They are anchors in my life.

Yes, the world is a scary place sometimes. Schools close and parishes fall into disrepair. People die. But there are those who keep us tethered in troubled waters and steady in terrible seas. They do this through their simple presence or through the lessons they have taught. Those lessons are gifts that will outlast even the giver.

I’m glad I went to the reunion. It did me good to check in again, to touch that stone once more and to remember. And it was good to tug on that rope and find it still firmly fastened. 

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