Sister Eleanor Stech
1926-2009

In her homily at Sister Eleanor Stech’s funeral, Sister Donna Kustusch said in part:

Our vision to Seek Truth, Make Peace, and Respect Life was at the core of Sister Eleanor’s spirituality. She lived the vision before we articulated it! She was a woman of profound love for our Adrian Dominican life. . . . We are blessed to call her “sister,” we rejoice that she was our friend, we give thanks for her example.

Edward and Rose (Sima) Stech, both of Bohemian ancestry, were the parents of three children, Rosemary, Eleanor, and Robert. Eleanor was born on February 27, 1926, in Chicago. Edward Stech was a coal merchant, and provided a good life for his family.

The Stechs were members of St. Clare of Montefalco Parish, and their children attended the parish school with the Adrian Dominican Sisters. At the wake, Sister Eleanor’s older sister Rosemary Zambon spoke of those years:

I was thirteen when our family moved from an apartment to a home on Rockwell Street. We enrolled in school there. It was her first year in school. We had to wear long stockings in those days, but it was decided that the first graders could wear anklets. I thought how lucky she was, because I had to wear the long stockings.

When we were children, we had a happy home. My dad would take us on trips. We went out west when I was thirteen and she was nine. We had some wonderful experiences. We had a picture of her and me in a buggy pulled by an ostrich.

She also told of the cottage that the family owned, and the happy summers spent there with relatives. “There was no TV, but we’d go swimming and fishing.” One of the uncles took his young nieces and nephews on tours to museums and interesting places. “He didn’t have much formal education but he read a lot, and I’m sure he instilled some knowledge in us.”

Upon finishing eighth grade, Eleanor followed Rosemary to Aquinas High School. In March of her senior year tragedy struck the Stech family when the husband and father died. Eleanor graduated in 1944, and she went on to De Paul University. In 1948 she completed a bachelor’s degree with a major in zoology and minors in chemistry and physics.

On June 26, 1949, she entered the postulate in Adrian. For the first semester of that school year, she taught science and English at Dominican High School in Detroit. Returning to Adrian, she received the habit and her religious name (Sister Paul Ellen) on December 27 and began the novitiate year of preparation. On December 23, 1950, sorrow came again to her and her siblings, when their mother died. A few days later, on December 28, 1950, she professed her first vows.

The first seven years of her teaching ministry were in Michigan. Her initial assignment as a professed sister was to St. Paul School in Grosse Pointe as a teacher of second graders for a short time, and she finished the semester teaching first grade at St. Theresa in Detroit. The next year she was moved to Our Lady Gate of Heaven, also in Detroit, where she taught third grade for six months, then was changed to St. John in Ypsilanti where she taught sixth graders for a year and a half.

In 1953 she began her high school ministry as a teacher of science and math, which began at St. Ambrose in Detroit where she taught freshmen for two years. She was then assigned to St. Gabriel, also in Detroit, to teach on the sophomore level. During the summers she studied at De Paul University in Chicago, and the university awarded her a master’s degree in biology in February 1956.

She was sent to the West in 1957 and assigned to Bishop O’Dowd High School in Oakland, California, where she taught for six years. In 1963 she spent four years at Holy Cross High School, in Santa Cruz, teaching ethics, math, and chemistry.

In 1967 she was brought back to Adrian to teach biology at Siena Heights College (now University). She left the college in 1971; and, at the suggestion of Sister Mary Therese McCarthy, a member of the General Council, she traveled for five months in Africa on a fact-finding tour, with the possibility of later teaching in Africa. She then spent seven months as a graduate theological student at St. Paul University in Ottawa, Canada. She returned to the States in 1972. The ministry in Africa did not materialize, and she accepted a position as pastoral minister at St. Philip Neri Parish in Chicago. At the wake Sister Mary Pat Dewey said:

I had an elderly aunt in a nursing home in Chicago. I was only able to visit a few times each year, but Sister Eleanor visited my aunt every week. She frequently called me to keep me informed of my aunt’s situation, and I was so grateful for her love and compassion.

In 1973 Sister Eleanor was elected co-provincial of St. Dominic Province, with the office in Hometown, Illinois. At the wake Sister Patricia McCarty remembered:

I was blessed to live with Sister Eleanor when she was elected to the Provincial team of St. Dominic Province in 1973. Those were the days just after Vatican II and we were the ones to try to implement the changes in religious life. Those times were not easy ones. Sister Eleanor was the most special and unusual person I have ever known.

After three years as co-provincial, Sister Eleanor returned to high school teaching at Regina High School in Wilmette, Illinois, for two years. When she left Regina, she served as a pastoral minister at Sacred Heart Parish in Auburn Heights, Michigan.

From September 1980 to May 1981 she was a full-time student at St. John Seminary in Plymouth, Michigan, and earned a master’s degree in systemic theology and scripture. During that time, she also served as spiritual director at Dominican High School in Detroit. For the next four years she was a pastoral associate at St. Patrick Parish in Brighton, Michigan.

For five years she served the Congregation as Director of Novices, then spent three years as assistant administrator and secretary in the Overseas Chapter Office, also located at the Adrian Motherhouse. Sister Mary Pat Dewey, who was Chapter Prioress at that time, remembered:

She truly was a partner with me in ministry and a preacher of the gospel. . . . Her experience of leadership was invaluable. She assisted me with patience and compassion, and at times gave me counsel. She accompanied me on some very difficult pastoral visits. We held our Chapter Assemblies in the Dominican Republic, and she assisted in planning the meetings, the prayer services, the preaching, and all the detail One memorable event was when both of us went to the Dominican Republic for the final profession of Sister Laura Pautz, who had been one of her novices. She also helped to care for sisters who came home from the missions. . . . When I was away, I knew I could count on her to minister to the sisters with love, and to manage to reach me in emergencies.

After a short time studying in the Cross Cultural Service Program in South Holland, Illinois, Sister Eleanor took a sabbatical year in 1993. She spent part of that year at the Mexican-American Cultural Center in San Antonio, Texas, then volunteered to help in El Paso, Texas. Her good friend, Sister Donna Kustusch, who lived in El Paso and ministered with the poor in Mexico, invited her to remain in El Paso and help in Mexico. She accepted. Her biography, written by an unidentified person, reveals:

In Ciudad Juarez she was the co-founder of Centro Santa Catalina, a center for economically poor women and children. Her years “south of the border” were spent as spiritual guide and wisdom figure in the development of the Center. Her first four years there were spent walking the poor and humble streets of the area, visiting with the economically poor and experiencing their lives and struggles.

Her wisdom guided the decision making with the women founders of the Center and helped establish a strong spiritual and organizational structure for and with them. She always said that she was happiest in this ministry. She said that it was “tough going” but she wouldn’t want to have changed a minute of the experience.

In 2004 Sister Eleanor was visiting her sister Rosemary in California, when she fell and broke her hip. Rosemary said:

She was doing her own personal laundry when she fell. I had told her that I would do it, but she never wanted to impose on anyone. I would get up early in the morning and find her in the kitchen, standing at the stove, watching for the teakettle to boil. She was watching it so that she could turn it off as soon as it started whistling so that it didn’t disturb anyone.

After the fall Sister Eleanor returned to Adrian, where she became a resident in the Maria Building of the Dominican Life Center. Her contact with Sister Donna was a source of comfort for her, but the year 2007 brought sorrow for her and Rosemary when their brother died. Sister Eleanor wanted to return to her ministry in Mexico, but that could not be. Her memory and her health were declining.

God took Sister Eleanor to eternity on December 6, 2009, at the age of eighty-three.

A wake-remembrance service was held for Sister Eleanor on December 9. Sister Jo Gaugier, Prioress of Holy Rosary Mission Chapter, opened the service and welcomed those who had assembled to bid Sister Eleanor farewell. These included her sister Rosemary Zambon and her husband Robert, her sister-in-law Mary Lou, many nieces and nephews, and numerous Dominican friends. Sister Jo summarized Sister Eleanor’s life and ministry, and added:

It was apparent to all but Sister Eleanor that she needed additional assistance . . . due to declining memory. A love of nature led to daily walks whenever possible. Each day, she also faithfully attended Mass and prayer. As memory gradually disappeared, she was the same wonderful, warm, and delightful person. She continued to read and attend Mass, sometimes in chapel, but more recently in the Garden community.

Sister Mary Pat Dewey shared remembrances. She said in part:

I first met Sister Eleanor over fifty years ago. When I was a postulant, she taught me biology and zoology, one during a summer session and the other during the three-week intermission. She was a marvelous teacher with a large group of us, all trying to balance study with all of our other duties as new members in the congregation. She was patient, and instilled in all of us a love of nature and appreciation of God’s work in creation.

Sister Patricia McCarty remembered:

There were no bounds to her virtues; all the gifts of the Spirit seemed to be operative in her. Although I believe there are actually many saints and mystics in our congregation, Sister Eleanor was, in my view, a true mystic when we define mysticism as a certain mode of thought founded on spiritual illumination. She was also an ascetic—that is a person of extreme self restraint and self denial.

Sister Eleanor’s funeral liturgy was celebrated on December 10. Father Robert Kelly was the presider, and Sister Donna Kustusch was the homilist. She spoke of Sister Eleanor with words of praise.

Sister Eleanor could not be passive in the face of suffering. Her desire for peace in Central America and nuclear disarmament compelled her to march, picket, go to jail, and acquire an FBI file for the sake of justice and peace. Her desire for justice brought her to the poor and humble streets of Colonia Panfilo Natera in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. There she put herself in the streets of the poor to let them lead her. With them, she struggled to find a response to their desires to have a better life for themselves and their children.

Her path into Mexico was risk for the sake of justice. . . . Without her wisdom and keen ability to see the complexity of the context, our response to the women’s desires to start a Center for Women and children could not have taken hold. She was, and remains, the wisdom, founding figure of Centro Santa Catalina. Truly, she made peace!

The major paradigm from which she viewed the world was that of microbiology. . . . She didn’t just see what was visible, she saw through the visible into the inner working of the cells that gave it form. This biological world view compelled her to marvel at the living mystery of creation. It also gave her patience in the process. When I was impatient with the progress of our ministry . . . she would often remind me that the seed would grow, the plant would flourish, but it took time. . . . I believe her keen understanding of the mystery around her was that which gave her an incredible sense of humor. . . . Life was beautiful. Indeed, she respected life!

As Sister Patricia said, “Those of us who knew her are all richer for having her as part of our lives.” But Sister Eleanor, also, is now richer—richer with the wonders found in eternal life.