Sister Kathryn Noonan
1923-2011

Sister Jo Gaugier described Sister Kathryn Noonan as “a woman of quiet courage and gentleness who set the course of financial practices which affect the lives of every single Dominican Sister of Adrian to this day.”

Sister Kathryn had what she described as “a grand reception into the world.” She was the first child born to John and Rose (Donahue) Noonan. Her mother had already suffered several miscarriages, and so Kathryn’s birth on July 22, 1923, was a time of rejoicing. The family was living in Maynard, Minnesota, but when Kathryn was five years old they moved to a 160-acre farm in Iowa where her father also raised livestock. In her autobiography, Sister Kathryn wrote that her mother “took great pride in raising chickens, turkeys, and growing a garden.” Within a short time after the move, another daughter was born and baptized Virginia. Her birth completed the Noonan family.

The Noonans wanted their daughters to attend a Catholic school, but the nearest one, St. Mary Academy, was in Emmetsburg, twenty-five miles away. Therefore, Kathryn went to live with her grandparents, whose home was much nearer to the school. There she met the Sisters of Charity. She was shy, but she soon made some good friends. She spent the weekends and summers on the family farm. She wrote:

I loved the beauties of nature, the growing of crops and the animals. I particularly liked harvest time when men in the neighborhood went from farm to farm with their teams of horses and hayracks to bring shocks of grain from the fields to the threshing machine.

She was still very young when the Great Depression erupted, and her father lost the farm, a loss that caused him much anguish. He moved the family across the state to Ruthven, an area where there were no Catholic schools, so she and Virginia attended public schools. Kathryn spent her secondary years in Ruthven High School. During her senior year, tragedy struck the family. Her father died as the result of an automobile accident. This was a very traumatic experience for the Noonans. The neighbors helped with the harvesting, and then Rose Noonan sold the farm. Upon high school graduation in May 1941, Kathryn went to Des Moines, took a secretarial course at Capital City Commercial College, and found a position at the State Rehabilitation Division. After the farm was sold, Rose and Virginia went to Pocahontas, Iowa, where Rose kept house for Father James Kane, a cousin of Mother Mary Gerald Barry.

The idea of dedicating her life to God had surfaced in Kathryn’s mind. She found the addresses of several convents in the telephone directory, visited them, but did not find any of them very attractive. She finally wrote to her mother of her wish to enter a religious community, and the next week Father Kane drove her mother and Virginia to Des Moines. He took the three of them to St. Augustin Convent, where they met the Adrian Dominican Sisters. “I immediately loved the joyous sisters in the white habits.” Kathryn decided to enter the Adrian Dominican Congregation, and the Sisters at St. Augustin helped her in getting together everything that she needed.

On February 1, 1943, she boarded the train for Adrian, where she was met by two Sisters and taken to the Motherhouse. On February 2 she received the postulant’s veil, and began her journey as a Dominican Sister. With her group she received the habit and her religious name on August 11, 1943. Until the 1970s she was known as Sister Mary Christopher. After the required novitiate year, she professed her first vows on August 17, 1944.

For two years after profession she remained in Adrian and took courses at Siena Heights College (now University). In addition, she had several other duties, including helping to type the manuscript of A Long Hot Day, the life of Bishop Barry that Sister Mary Philip Ryan was writing. In June 1946, she received her bachelor’s degree with a major in secretarial science and minors in English and history.

Within a short time, she was on the train again, this time headed for Florida to open new missions. She traveled with several other Sisters, one of whom was Mother Mary Gerald Barry. Sister Kathryn wrote, “Mother was a marvelous traveling companion. We thoroughly enjoyed visiting and praying with her as we journeyed the many miles.” They stopped in Chicago, where Mother collected articles to be used at the new missions. There was also a humorous incident. The Sisters were given a chocolate cake to take with them. After Mother had retired, the young Sisters had a party, enjoying the cake and sharing it with some children on the train. Some time later, when they reached Pensacola and were having dinner, Mother asked for the cake as dessert. “When she learned what had happened she said, ‘I would have shared my cake with you.’”

Sister Kathryn was assigned to Sacred Heart, a school opening in Pensacola, where she assisted in getting the school ready. It was housed in a large, unfurnished building in poor shape, and required much cleaning and scrubbing of floors. There was no furniture for the first few days, so the Sisters slept on the floor. After teaching middle grade students there for six months, Sister Kathryn was transferred to St. Anthony in Fort Lauderdale as a primary teacher for the rest of the year.

In 1947 she was changed to West Palm Beach, where she taught middle grade students at St. Ann School for four years and at Rosarian Academy for seven years. At that time, Rosarian extended much hospitality to the hierarchy and priests, and she was one of the Sisters who did “washing, ironing, cleaning, serving, and entertaining these clerical guests” besides her teaching duties. During the summers she attended the University of Florida in Gainesville, and in August 1955 she was awarded a master’s degree in education.

The year 1958 was a year of bewilderment. She was assigned to Barry College (now University) in Miami as treasurer and chairperson of the business department. She wrote of this assignment as “the most difficult time of my whole life.” The previous treasurer had left for her new mission, and Sister Kathryn had no one to answer her questions. She wrote that Sister Mary Alice Collins, the executive vice president, allowed her to attend workshops, visit other colleges, and consult experts in order to learn the principles of fund accounting. After many struggles, she became a success in this position, and held it for ten years. Her last year there also included a time of sadness when her mother died in May 1968.

She received “the surprise of my life” on her forty-fifth birthday in July 1968, when she was elected Treasurer-General of the Congregation at the General Chapter. Because of distance, she was notified of her election via ticker tape. She knew most of the newly-elected Council members and the Secretary-General, Sister Mary Catherine Jordan, and felt that her years at Barry College had prepared her well for this demanding job. During her tenure, finances were centralized, a retirement fund was established, the Congregation joined the Social Security Program, and budgets and quarterly reports were required of individual Sisters and all Congregational departments. It was at this time, also, that the Leadership Conference was held and greatly impressed her. In addition, she was delighted to be invited to accompany Sister Rosemary Ferguson, the Prioress, on her visits to the Philippine Islands and Tokyo. She wrote of her years as Treasurer General as “a special grace, a blessed opportunity.”

When her term ended in 1974, she spent a semester studying theology at St. Michael University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and a semester at the University of Michigan in Lansing studying gerontology. She became very much aware that working with the elderly was not her forté.

Her next ministry was as life services director at Catholic Charities in Memphis, Tennessee. When she left this ministry, an article in the diocesan paper said in part, “Sister Kathryn left behind a splendid record of administration which has touched on the lives of hundreds and hundreds of people here in the diocese – Catholic and non-Catholic alike.” In 1978, Sister Kathryn went to Rose de Lima Hospital in Henderson, Nevada, as comptroller for three years. She returned to Adrian in 1981 and served as treasurer at St. Joseph Academy for eight years. This was also publicized in the area Catholic papers.

Sister Kathryn had been working in the financial field for many years and felt that it was time for a change. After a six-month sabbatical, she went to Atlanta, Georgia, as administrative secretary in the Mid-Atlantic Chapter Office. She returned to Adrian in 1992, and administered the Motherhouse Library, later known as St. Catherine Library, for seven years.

She retired in 1999, lived in the Regina residence, and volunteered her services. An onset of illness overtook her, however, and in 2004 she moved into the Maria Building, where she remained until her death on October 28, 2011, at the age of eighty-eight.

Sister Kathryn’s wake-remembrance service was held in St. Catherine Chapel on November 1. Present were several nieces, nephews, and her many Dominican friends. Sister Jo Gaugier, Prioress of Holy Rosary Mission Chapter, welcomed the many who had come to bid Sister Kathryn farewell and extended sympathy. She summarized Sister Kathryn’s life and ministry, and added, “She suffered several strokes, and each one took its toll.”

Sister Patricia Siemen sent a message of praise.

Sister Kathryn inspired and influenced me from the time of being a “junior professed” through her illness and dying. As a postulant and novice, my “obedience” was to work in the Treasurer’s office. . . . I remember being in the Bursar’s office one day in August 1968 and getting a phone call that Sister Christopher had arrived and was at the front desk. I went down and brought her to the then very small Bursar’s office.

When I was Chapter Prioress of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter in 1990, I invited her to move to Atlanta to serve as the Chapter’s Administrative Secretary. . . . I traveled a lot, and she had to learn the streets and highways of Atlanta. . . . She served the Chapter and Sisters with her warm graciousness and generosity. When I moved to Adrian in 1992 to serve on the General Council, Sister Kathryn moved as well.

Sister Thomas James Burns also sent a remembrance. She wrote in part:

Rosarian Academy was our meeting place as together we burnished halls in Bradley or readied the building for arrival of the boarders. . . . Your friendship and support helped me to survive. Our time together at Barry College for summer school is a fond memory. Our contact throughout the years has been important to me. You have been a woman of integrity, modeling the Dominican motto of Truth. You have taught me what it is to be a woman of prayer in love with God. Your life-long commitment to our institutions has been an inspiration to me.

Sister Dorothy Folliard spoke. Among her remarks:

I came as a postulant to Adrian in June 1943. Sister Kathryn was already here . . . prayerful, quietly humorous, self-effacing. . . . My path didn’t cross hers again until 1968. We elected her to a Congregational office. She did her work quietly, but she put her stamp on the ministry of treasurer. . . .

After the General Chapter in 1968, our provinces began to have provincial chapters. One province after another voted to centralize finances in Adrian. Sister Kathryn’s job description exploded! But with her customary “private panic, public calm,” she took the changes in her stride. She did not merely centralize finances – she centralized hearts. Her gentle spirit permeated all our financial dealings.

We ask to be filled with her spirit, to remember that whatever resources we have are not mine, but ours, to be used for the purposes of God!

Sister Winifred Lynch also shared a remembrance.

Irish people have a habit of giving names to people they live and work with. I would call her “straight arrow.” With Sister Kathryn, there was no beating around the bush, and she was an excellent religious. When we were at St. Ann in West Palm Beach, besides teaching a large class, she would come home and do all the treasurer’s duties. There were no complaints – she  just did the job.

One time a colonel in the Army, retired to Palm Beach, brought his big police dog and gave it to the nuns. He said it shouldn’t have to go to obedience school. The following day, when the dog was home on duty, we were robbed. The dog had a fancy name, but Sister Kathryn said, “From now on, your name is ‘Flunk.’” What a straight arrow, and what a wonderful religious! I treasure the days I spent with her.

Sister Kathryn’s funeral liturgy was celebrated on November 2. Father Robert Kelly, OP, was the presider and homilist. She was then laid to rest in the Congregational cemetery.