Sister Thomas Annette Burns
1921-2008
Affectionately known as “T.A.” to her family and to her Dominican Sisters, Sister Thomas Annette Burns was a woman of many talents. Besides her years of teaching in and administering both elementary and high schools, she served as moderator of the Adrian Dominican Legion in Chicago, and gave workshops on school law in the Midwest and Southern states.
In her autobiography, she told an interesting story about her mother. Shortly before her marriage, Anna Foley had to have an appendectomy. During the surgery, one of the doctors told Anna’s mother that Anna’s ovaries should also be removed, and wanted her consent to do so.
Grandma Foley responded, “You will do no such thing. The girl is getting married, and will be raising a family.” The doctor smiled and said, “She will never be able to bear children.” Grandma Foley looked the doctor in the eye and said, “And who are you to decide the Lord’s plan? You’ll not take the ovaries!”
After her recovery Anna M. Foley married Thomas Francis Burns. Both were in their early thirties. They made their home in Chicago; and, contrary to the doctor’s statement, Anna bore four daughters. Florence, the future Sister Thomas Annette, was born on April 7, 1921. We are not told the order in which the daughters came, except that Florence was second. The others were Loretta, Ann, and Margaret. Thomas Burns was a certified public accountant, and beginning with 1928 he was employed as private secretary to the owner, and as financial manager, of Calumet Farms Racing Stables. Before her marriage, Anna Foley worked at Carson Pirie Scott.
The parents were dedicated members of St. Columbanus Parish on the South Side, and all their daughters attended St. Columbanus School. Their father belonged to the Holy Name Society and was president of the St. Vincent de Paul Society. During the Great Depression, his daughters learned much about the needs of the poor. With their father, they visited homes and saw “dire circumstances.” They helped him with the work of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, realized that they had much for which to be grateful, and learned to share with others. They owned a car, and their father was always willing to drive the sisters to “hospitals, cemeteries, other convents, even to Mount St. Mary Academy in St. Charles.” One of his daughters always went along. Close association with the sisters in school and on rides aroused love and admiration for them in Florence’s heart. When it was time for high school, she chose to attend St. Joseph Academy in Adrian. In her autobiography, she wrote:
Sometimes I would be late returning to the Academy after a vacation, and Dad would send a telegram saying that I was on a trip with him and he felt it would be “educational.” All the kids at the Academy would smile and say, “You bet!” I loved the horse races, especially the Kentucky Derby. Calumet Farms has, in the course of the years, won the Triple Crown more times than any other stable.
After graduation in 1938, Florence worked for a year and a half at the United States Gypsum Company, although she knew that she wanted to become an Adrian Dominican. This was at the request of her father, and also the request of some of the Academy sisters, who wanted her to be sure of her vocation. On January 28, 1940, she arrived in Adrian and entered the postulate. She received the habit and her religious name on August 7, and professed her first vows on August 12, 1941.
For twenty years she ministered in Michigan. Within a short time of profession she was in Detroit as a middle grade teacher at Visitation School for five years. She returned to Chicago in 1942, however, for her beloved father’s funeral. In 1946 she was moved to St. Gabriel School in Detroit for a year.
In 1947 Sister Thomas Annette was sent to a small country school, SS. Peter and Paul in Ruth, where she taught for seven years, at first on the junior high level, then in the high school. She was delighted when her sister Ann entered in 1949, became known as Sister Thomas James, and after her profession was assigned to Ruth for two years. In her autobiography Sister Thomas Annette wrote of her love for Ruth, of the children and parents, and of her joy in teaching there. She wrote, “The South Side Chicagoan was a converted country gal!”
In July 1948, as a result of summer study, Siena Heights College (now University) in Adrian awarded Sister Thomas Annette a Bachelor’s Degree with a major in history and minors in English and Latin. More summer studies followed at the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana, and on August 1954 she received a Master’s Degree in History and became a “Fighting Irish” fan.
Her next assignment was a challenge to her. She was appointed principal and superior at a large Detroit elementary school, St. Jude. At the wake Sister Rose Celeste O’Connell, current Secretary of the Congregation, shared a remembrance.
In August 1956, Sister Thomas Annette came to Adrian to pick up her three newly professed Sisters. I had the good fortune to be one of those Sisters… St. Jude School had over 1,700 students, with four classes of each grade… T.A. was a consummate teacher and principal. She was loved by the students and teachers and deeply respected by the parents.
T.A. was a great superior. We were twenty-four Sisters, twelve without the ring and very young… She was compassionate and kind, prayerful and fun-loving, strict, yet always looking for ways to make life interesting. She loved hosting movies and parties for the Sisters in the area. On Saturdays she would bring all the young Sisters over to the gym for basketball. She could sink a basket from the center line with great ease in full habit. In the spring she would pack six or more at a time into our station wagon for “Mystery Trips” off to somewhere in Michigan, which always ended in an ice cream treat. Notre Dame and Notre Dame football was a “must.” … We had lots of fun with the DuMais nieces and nephews, riding them up and down the halls on kitchen carts. They were a great delight then, and now.
During her studies Sister Thomas Annette had become very much interested in school law, and during the summers she taught that subject at Siena Heights College and helped with the postulants. After a successful six-year term at St. Jude, she was brought back to Adrian for a year as assistant postulant mistress. She also taught theology and history to the postulants and novices, and school law at Siena Heights College.
In 1961 she began twenty-five years of ministry in Illinois. This ministry began at Aquinas High School in Chicago, where she taught religion and social studies for five years. She was then moved to Regina Dominican High School in Wilmette, where she taught social studies. It was during these years that she became interested in helping the Adrian Dominican Legion, made up of parents, relatives, and friends of the sisters. This organization raised money to help the sisters. In 1965, she was appointed its moderator. She wrote of the money-raising celebrations that attracted thousands of people. “These people were the most dedicated people I have ever had the privilege of working with.” For thirteen years she served with this group.
Again, in 1968, she became a superior and principal, this time at Infant Jesus of Prague Elementary School in Flossmoor. During this time she served on the Board of the Archdiocesan Principals Association and was president of the Board for three years. At the end of her successful six-year term, she studied for a year at De Paul University in Chicago, and earned a certificate in supervision. At the wake a fax was read from Sister Cyrilla Zarek, sharing a memory from that time.
[This was] a very painful time in my life. I was in the process of transferring from another Dominican congregation, and I was assigned to Infant Jesus of Prague in Flossmoor where Sister Thomas Annette was principal… She not only warmly welcomed me, but also engaged me in a hopeful conversation. Then, through my early days in the congregation, Sister Thomas Annette continued to be a major support, especially during an extremely difficult family situation.
The next year Sister Thomas Annette was employed by the Chicago Catholic and Public Schools as a lecturer on school law. She taught school law at the Police Academy and to school security personnel. For the next two years she served as a consultant in the Chicago Human Services Department, and continued with school law lectures. She wrote:
I was invited to be the key speaker on Institute Days for administrators and teachers on the diocesan level and at school faculty meetings. I was honored by an invitation from many Chicago Public School Superintendents to speak at District Meetings. Finally, my school law presentations took me “on the road” to Alabama, Florida, Illinois, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
In her file is a page (no date shown) from the Lansing, Michigan, Diocesan newspaper on the occasion of an in-service institute held in Lansing. It featured a picture of her and a description of her presentation on school law as one of the most popular and best attended.
In 1978 she began eight years as assistant principal at Regina Dominican High School in Wilmette. Kathleen Burke, an associate, sent a fax to the wake. She wrote in part:
Sister Thomas Annette was a great mentor during my first years at Regina Dominican. Although the school was very large at the time, T.A. ran a very tight ship. Students were held accountable, whether it was for uniform code violations or “big, moussed-up hair.” When we had a bomb scare in the spring of 1986, she managed to keep order as the school was evacuated and searched.
Sister Thomas Annette did not take herself too seriously… When Regina made it to the finals in basketball, Sister painted the school colors of black and white onto her face, quite a look in the modified habit she wore at the time. It made the front page of “The Wilmette Life.”
Sister Ann Romayne Fallon, who was principal at Regina Dominican High School at that time, also sent a remembrance. She wrote in part:
Sister Thomas Annette seemed to have an amazing gift for knowing just when any girl might not be in the appropriate class at the appropriate time. One particular remembrance I have is the morning that she realized that four of her favorite offenders were not present for the first class of the day… She placed a call to a restaurant in the area and, after giving a full description of the group, asked the manager if the four might be enjoying breakfast at the moment. Receiving a positive response, she immediately asked him just to go over to the table and ask a named girl to take a call from a “friend” on the phone without revealing the name of the “friend.” I suspect you can all imagine the shock that ran through the young women when they were invited to pay their dues and arrive at Regina within a specified amount of time… I never figured out how in the world she did it!
In 1985, the year before she left Regina, Sister Thomas Annette lost her mother; and in the following years she lost both her sisters Loretta and Marge.
Sister Thomas Annette’s time in the Midwest was broken in 1986 by four years at Rosarian in West Palm Beach, Florida, where Sister Thomas James was principal. There Sister Thomas Annette served as consultant to the alumnae, and teacher on both the elementary and secondary levels. In 1990 she returned to Chicago and taught for five years at Maria High School.
During the 1995-96 school year she served as a substitute teacher at Marist High School and Mother McAuley High School for the first semester, then spent the last months of that year on sabbatical/retreat at Holy Cross Brothers Center in Notre Dame. She retired that year, and spent the next seven years volunteering her services to the nursery for the newborn at Holy Cross Hospital and living with Sister Thomas James at St. Denis Convent in Chicago. She returned to Adrian in 2003, lived in Regina Residence for a year, then transferred to the Maria Building in 2004. Death came to her on Epiphany Sunday, January 6, 2008, at the age of eighty-six. She was the first sister to die in 2008.
A wake-remembrance service was held for Sister Thomas Annette in St. Catherine Chapel on January 8. Sister Joan Sustersic, Prioress of Holy Rosary Mission Chapter, opened the service, extended sympathy to Sister Thomas James and the many nieces and nephews present, summarized Sister Thomas Annette’s life and ministry, and added:
No matter what her mood, she was always able to sing the Notre Dame Fight Song! She had a beautiful voice and a LOUD one when she wanted to be heard. She was a dyed-in-the-wool Notre Dame fan. She LOVED sports and enjoyed watching football, basketball, hockey. She was a prayerful woman who loved God, but wasn’t happy that her body was not cooperating and she needed to become more dependent on others.
Sister’s nieces Rosemary and Meredith Du Mais, and her nephew Tom Du Mais spoke, sharing memories of their aunt, mentioning her Irish heritage, her red hair, and the brogue she sometimes assumed. They expressed their thanks for the care given her.
Father Roland Calvert, OSFS, was the presider and homilist at Sister Thomas Annette’s funeral liturgy on January 9 in St. Catherine Chapel. Father Donald Eppenbrock, now pastor in Lexington, Michigan, concelebrated. He is a native of Ruth, and was one of Sister Thomas Annette’s students at SS. Peter and Paul School. Many of Sister’s nieces and nephews also served. Her niece, Jennifer Head, was the cantor.
Sister’s niece Rosemary prayed at the wake, “Lord, You called her—just remember, ‘tis herself—so be prepared!” We concur.