Nuns I've Known

This week, I picked up my crochet hook again after many years. Inevitably, as I formed my slip-knot and began my chain, my mind turned to nuns. It always does when I crochet because it was a nun who taught me to crochet.



The Meek Years

These days you've got to travel far afield to find nuns in any kind of threatening numbers, but in my early years we couldn't swing a cat without getting pounced upon by one. Swinging a cat would, of course, be perfect provocation for a tongue-lashing, ear-boxing or other potentially damaging nunly form of attention. But frequently, the nuns could be provoked with far less effort. For some, mere existence would suffice. I once caught the wrath of a particularly mean nun for holding on to my empty juice box after lunch. As a third-grader I was a living definition of the word meek. As I stood in a line of students terrorized by Sister Barbara, my heart nearly stopped as I realized she was glowering right at me and demanding to know why I was still clutching garbage. "I need it to make a log cabin, Sister," some brave part of me piped up. "A WHAT?" she bellowed, eyes ablaze. "A log cabin, Sister, with pretzels glued on," I tried. "WELL MAKE SURE IT DOESN'T LEAK ON THE STAIRS." She spoke each word slowly, like you might imagine John Wayne or Dirty Harry would if they didn't want juice on their stairs. "Yes, Sister," I managed, fighting back tears.

All tolled, that was my worst personal encounter with a nun. But I witnessed far worse and the horror of it kept me a goody-two-shoes certainly for my entire Catholic school career and in truth, for many years afterwards. In retrospect, I can reason that they needed a bit of fear on their side. During the baby-boom they could have easily 40-50 kids in a class with three such teeming classes per grade. They ran the whole show back then with a small cadre of lay teachers to help them keep the peace and the learning going forth. While it couldn't have been an easy job, there were definitely some who took more pleasure than was strictly necessary in keeping the fear quotient high. As a kid, you had to be on your guard.

Sr. Mary Regis, aka Auntie Sister

My sisters and I always felt a little bit protected by the fact that we had a nun for an aunt. Sister Mary Regis was the name she went by. Auntie Sister is the mortifying name they settled upon us calling her. In later years, my friends would call her the Anti-Sister. My sister's friends called her Sister Hyatt Regency. She was my mother's sister and we were not afraid of her although I suspect she could more than hold her own in the classroom. The worst she would do to us is nag and we always had my mother to run interference. She had an operatic voice which the powers that were limited to church use although she had other options before they overruled them. Her Ave Maria could make a stone weep. In her heyday, she took us to Radio City Music Hall and introduced us to the ballet. She humanized the whole nun experience for us and we always figured she was our ace in the hole if we had any nun trouble ourselves.

You don't see nuns in the numbers you once did and it's little wonder why. Because of the crueler ones, their reputation was all shot to hell. Unlike trying out for the priesthood, convent-joining entails a vow of poverty. It seemed like some nuns back then were man-fearers or man-eschewers. A woman who wanted nothing to do with men, could take refuge in the convent without having to explain an "unnatural" lack of interest in marriage or baby-making. But these days, we can stay single without stigma and if we want to teach or nurse, we can do so and get paid right for it. Incentives for the nunnery are down and now, as a result, it probably consists of women who are in it for the right reasons. Less scary women, no doubt.

Random nuns at Panera Bread

But the nuns weren't all bad. In fact, some were in it for the right reasons back then and those are the ones I remember quite fondly. I still recall Sister Margaret Thomas, my third grade teacher as one of the sweetest, kindest of women. I think she really loved me in all of my puny, sickly, meekness. Despite a penchant for putting Chinese hot mustard on the tongues of those who got out of line, Sister Theresa was generally agreeable and pithily cautioned students to, "walk between the raindrops," when it rained. In seventh grade, Sister Joyce Ulrich was like a big sister figure. She never raised her voice and never had the slightest of discipline problems. I think we were all too busy learning and liking science with her. But the most colorful and amazing was Sister Irma de Sales--the one who taught me to wield a crochet hook. As with anything Sr. Irma taught, I've never forgotten it. She was, perhaps, the perfect nun. Stern on the outside, sweet at heart, and one hell of a great teacher. The woman could teach English grammar to a tree stump. Anyone who learned her preposition song back then could probably sing it to you today. "Above, about, across, between . . ." to the tune of the Lone Ranger. She was forever threatening to do the dance of the seven veils down the aisles to get her point across, but unfortunately for us she was such a great teacher it never came to that. She knew it wouldn't so it was a calculated risk. Still, I'd have loved to have seen it. 

My Irish Twin dressed as a nun for Halloween