Bishop Buddy Scrapbook 1946-1948

* * To most of us and in most ways the beginning of this academic year has not differed essentially from other years. The old girls are back, eager and established and at ease. The new girls are here, a bit shy, a bit inexperienced, but patently justifying their academic records with their quick adjustments to the college way of life. Teachers and classes have re-established the intellectual order. Only our oldest teacher is not here. For the first time in fifty-one years Sister Francis Jerome is not at Saint Mary's for the opening of school. She is our reli- gious superior. She is the only vice-presi- dent that the college has ever had until this year. She is the laureate among our teachers. We honor ourselves in dedicat- ing this Honors Convocation to her. More than fifty years ago a slender, grey-eyed girl from Seneca, Illinois, en- tered high school at Saint Angela's Acad- emy, Morris. This is next to Saint Ma- ry's, Notre Dame, the oldest of all the boarding schools of the Sisters of the Holy Cross. At that time it had been a most flourishing school for nearly forty years . The pretty) shy, refined"new stu- dent was Susan O'Laughlin. Her father, Michael O'Laughlin, was a great man in the fine qualities that characterized lead- ership half a century ago. Beyond his local civic offices he served his state in the legislature for two terms. Mrs. 0'- Laughlin mothered nine children among whom Susan was fifth. She gave to the O'Laughlin household the essence of a home so unmistakably perpetuated in her children. Looking at her youngest daugh- ter Susan she used to say with the under- statement typical of her generation: "You are not really pretty but you are good." The years at Saint Angela's were years of wonder and delight to the girl from Seneca. Here her bookish home habits found wide worlds in which to flourish,

and inspiring teachers to direct them. At the end of two years she knew that she herself wanted to become one of those teachers. On the feast of Saint Ignatius, 1896, she entered the novitiate of the Sisters of the Holy Cross. On the feast of the Holy House of Loreto that same year she became Sister Francis J e- rome. Her years as a novice she has al- ways looked back to as among the most ideal of her life. They were years of re- ligious training under a beloved mistress of novices, Mother Siena, years of the study of Latin and Greek under the best professors from the University of Notre Dame. By the beginning of the new century she had received her black veil and her obedience to teach the eighth grade at Saint Mary's Academy. In the generation before progressive education, that in- cluded mothering and disciplining as well as instructing. It meant supervising and correcting general deportment, table manners, letters to parents and guardians, epistolary correspondence in the idiom of that day. It meant reading at a Sun- day assembly of students and teachers the weekly report of every student m classwork, politeness, observance of rules. It meant leading the students in ranks to the Church of Loreto for Mass, Vespers, Benediction. This from the mi- nim to the college department describes the academic program and routine of Sis- ter Francis Jerome for the first twenty- five years of her religious life. In 1898 Saint Mary's College granted its first degree, a Bachelor of Letters, to Agnes Ewing Brown. The erstwhile acad- emy took on the curriculum, the intellec- tual responsibilities and eventually the distinction of a college. In that develop- ment no living Sister of the Holy Cross has contributed more loyally, more un- interruptedly than Sister Francis J e- rome. From the beginning she received

and the colleges of San Rafael, Holy Names, Immaculate Heart. The summer of 1929 Sister Francis Jerome spent in Europe in the company of her lifelong friend , Mother Claudia, then dean of women at Saint Mary's, and Mrs. Holland, friend and benefactor of the school. Stories of that summer are le- gion and treasures of it precious. The se- quel occurred in the Odyssey cruise of 1939, a three months' conducted tour through the Mediterranean and Greece with a short trip to the Holy Land. Sister Monica, one of her excellent classical stu- dents, accompanied her. In this fulfill- ment of the dream of her life as a teacher and a lover of the classics she found mul- tiplied satisfaction and joy. Even with war over Europe, the skies of Homer and the walks of Plato matched their spirit with hers. Her unclassical return to the United States on a freighter became more than an anticlimax in the adventure. From the years of her noviceship Sis- ter Francis Jerome had found in Mother Pauline, the head of Saint Mary's and the founder of the college, her ideal and her friend. In her position on the faculty she moved constantly in the orbit of Mother's wise thinking and noble acting. She watched the college grow into and outgrow the two magnificent buildings which in the course of twenty-five years were erected under Mother Pauline's di- rection. She shared the academic devel- opments which demanded this external expansion. With Sister Irma's appointment to the office of president in 1931 Sister Francis Jerome was made vice-president where she continued her faithful and unfailing support. She honored this position in the graciousness of her fulfilling it. The appointment of the third presi- dent of the college brought no change in its vice-president but only completer loy- alty to the old ideals, the old ways that

the chairmanship of the classical lan- guage department. In relinquishing it to the competence of Sister Mildred Dolo- res two years ago she had the satisfaction of entrusting the dear cause of the clas- sics to one of her own students. No teach- er loved her department and her pupils more truly. None followed them and their success with more solicitous pride. And their success has been conspicuous. Three times the art and science and culture of the classical language depart- ment flowered notably under her direc- tion in the authentic production of Greek plays in Greek. The Alcestis of Euripides in 1923, the Antigone of Sophocles in 1924, and the Iphigenia at Aulis of Eu- ripides in 1932 complete a trilogy in classical tragedy and represent as fine a level of dramatic and literary achieve- ment as the college has ever attained. In the intellectual life of Saint Mary's they best represent Sister Francis Je- rome. Her English students will be unhappy to have had the good years of her fresh- man English classes put second to any of her years of teaching. Hundreds of wom- en the world over know and love more wisely words and the Word because they had Sister Francis Jerome for their teacher of English. This richness of communicable knowl- edge did not come without years of grad- uate study and months of wide and well- directed travel. Beyond her graduate work and her Master's degree at the Uni- versity of Notre Dame, Sister Francis Jerome spent a year in residence at Ford- ham University where she received her degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1922. An additional summer session at Colum- bia University expanded her experience in graduate schools. This was followed by a summer's travel through the west with profitable visits to the universities of California, Stanford, Santa Barbara