Sister Lois Spear
1920-2009

Sister Lois Spear was a talented writer. She published two books and many articles in various magazines and papers. Sister Mary Ellen Youngblood called her “an artist whose medium was the written word.”

She was the daughter of Katherine (Wacht) and Horace Spear, born on December 7, 1920, and the youngest of their eight children, two of whom died before her birth. Her surviving siblings were Nicholas, Thelma, William, Dorothy, and Agnes. The Spears were farming people, but at the time of Lois’s birth they were living in Estherville, Iowa, and operating a small family business. When the business failed, Horace Spear moved his family to a 325-acre farm close to Estherville in Emmet County, near the Minnesota border. Katherine Spear was a devout Catholic, and she saw to it that the family attended Sunday Mass, any missions offered in the parish, and that they prayed the rosary together.

At the age of five, Lois began her education in a rural school a little more than a mile from her home. Her older brothers and sisters also attended, but after they graduated she became the only Catholic attending the school. She was a sensitive child; and she found those school years among Lutheran classmates hard, as she was often hurt by being called “a dirty catlicker.”

Soon the Great Depression brought hardship. The local bank failed, her father’s promissory note was sold, and the buyer demanded immediate payment. Foreclosure was at hand. To the rescue came the Farmers’ Holiday, “a radical offshoot of the Farmers’ Union that promised to stop foreclosures by force, if necessary.” Farmers, the sheriff, and the noteholder spent a night of negotiations, and reached a compromise. The farm was saved.

When Lois graduated from eighth grade, she attended Wallingford High School, then transferred to Estherville High School. She received her diploma in June 1938, qualified for a teaching certificate, but was not old enough to teach. She wanted to attend Estherville Junior College, but her father disapproved. The family was still in financial straits, and Lois’s brothers had left school to work on the farm. Her mother, happy that one of her children wanted to attend college, approved, however, and Lois enrolled in the Junior College. When she received her associate degree and her teaching certificate in 1940, she was valedictorian of her graduating class.

On December 7, 1941, her twenty-first birthday, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II. Lois had been teaching in a rural school, but the shortage of teachers at that time made it possible for her to get a better teaching job with a higher salary. Her brothers were all drafted, and that summer she worked in a defense plant in Rockford, Illinois. A devout Catholic, she felt a call to serve God, but the excitement of the war years somewhat stifled that call. She attended dances and dated, even had an offer of marriage. When she consulted a priest, he told her that he thought she had a vocation to the religious life. Meeting and talking with some of the Adrian Dominican sisters serving in Rockford, brought serious thoughts of entering a religious congregation.

Soon she decided to become an Adrian Dominican. On December 9, 1944, two days after her twenty-fourth birthday, she entered the postulate at Adrian. She found the life difficult since she knew none of the postulants or the sisters, but she persevered. On August 9, 1945, she received the habit and her religious name (Sister Marie Jude), and on August 13, 1946, she professed her first vows. In June 1946 Siena Heights College (now University) in Adrian conferred a bachelor’s degree upon her with a major in education and minors in social science, philosophy, and English.

Sister Lois’s first assignment sent her to Visitation School in Detroit as a middle grade teacher. A year later she was sent to St. Edward in Rockford, Illinois, to be closer to her family. Her mother died on July 29, 1947, a month before her daughter arrived in Rockford. Sister Lois spent eight years in Rockford and taught in all the grades from three to six.

In 1953, as a result of summer study, she received a master’s degree in history from De Paul University in Chicago. In 1955 she was at St. Henry in Cleveland, Ohio, where she taught second grade for three years. During the summers she studied theology at Mount St. Mary in St. Charles, Illinois, and in August 1957 she was awarded a certificate.

Sister Lois began her high school ministry in 1958 at Hoban-Dominican High School in Cleveland as a teacher of religion, history, and reading. Two years later she was transferred to Dominican High School in Detroit. Again sorrow entered her life, when she lost her father in February 1961.

After a year in Florida at Rosarian Academy in West Palm Beach as a teacher of English and social studies, she was brought back to the Midwest where she taught English and history at St. Paul in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Four years later she was transferred to Regina High School in Wilmette, Illinois, then spent two years as a full-time student at Loyola University in Chicago where she earned a doctorate in history that was awarded to her in 1971.

In August 1971 Sister Lois was assigned to Barry College (now University) where she taught for a year. The next year saw her at St. Augustine College in Raleigh, North Carolina, a college for black students. In her autobiography she wrote, “While there, I had the opportunity to visit West Africa with nineteen other college teachers in a study of development methods.” In 1976 her first article was published in Commonweal, an article on prison conditions in North Carolina. In the following years, many articles were published in Commonweal, the National Catholic Reporter, and various other magazines and papers.

She left St. Augustine College in 1979, and accepted a position as communications director for the Mercy Sisters of the Union in Potomac, Maryland. Desirous of writing, she became a reporter for The Catholic Mirror in Des Moines, Iowa, and a year later served as editor of the Intermountain Catholic Newspaper in Salt Lake City, Utah, for four years. During that time articles about her and her work appeared in several area newspapers.

In 1986 Sister Lois began three years as communications director at the Adrian Motherhouse, then served for three years as communications director for the Franciscan Sisters of La Crosse, Wisconsin. One year Insight, the magazine of which she was editor, tied for second place with the Adrian Dominican publication Inbetweenin a judging by the Catholic Press Association. Her last ministry was as a teacher of journalism at Siena Heights College in Adrian, which she left in 1995. She also accepted an invitation to teach volunteer classes at Adrian’s two state prisons for men, the Gus Harrison and Parr Highway correctional facilities.

At the age of seventy-five, she decided it was time to retire, so moved into Regina Residence at the Motherhouse. Not able to be idle, however, she volunteered her services as a receptionist and continued her work at the prisons and her writing, eventually publishing two books: in 1999 Everyday Scripture, Our Story in God’s Story and in 2002 God Is with You: Prayers for Men in Prison. She also engaged in demonstrations and picketing for peace and justice. Articles about her and her activities have appeared in Adrian’s newspaper, The Daily Telegram, and in area papers.

In her middle and late eighties, Sister Lois was ill and incapacitated, forced to use a walker as an aid to Mass and the dining room and to curtail her activities. When God took her to eternity on June 1, 2009, she was eighty-eight years of age. The last article that she wrote, “Hard Times,” was published in America, and the issue came out at the time of her death.

Sister Lois’s wake-remembrance service was held in St. Catherine Chapel on June 3. Sister Mary Ellen Youngblood, Prioress of Adrian Crossroads Mission Chapter, opened the service, extended sympathy to the many nieces and nephews who were present, and summarized Sister Lois’s life and ministry. Sister’s brother William Spear and her sister Dorothy Theesfeld were unable to be present.

Sister Patricia Schnapp, RSM, spoke words of praise.

I was lucky enough to be Lois’s housemate (she was a great baker and cook) and her colleague at Siena Heights. . . . She volunteered to teach classes one night a week at Gus Harrison, the nearby state prison. Though petite and soft-spoken, she had no problem in keeping her murderers, armed robbers, and drug dealers in line. One of them, in fact, nicknamed her “the little General.” But the strongest prison memory I have is of her standing in the hall outside the prison classroom, showing one felon, who had taken up needlework, how to make a French knot. And she made him repeat it and repeat it until she was satisfied that he knew what he was doing.

She was a fiercely loyal friend . . . a lover of scholarship and culture, an example of fortitude with a funnybone, and a model of aging with grace and dignity. I’ll miss her.

Sister Bernice Olszewski remembered Sister Lois as her fourth grade teacher:

We were a lively group. We thought she was beautiful. . . . She had an innate ability to engage children in the learning process. I still remember the time that she had us all dressed up in the Crusade regalia. . . . She was an amazingly scholarly woman. She put the love of study into us. When I decided to enter, the sisters helped me get ready, and she made all the clothes I needed.

Sister Therese Haggerty also spoke.

I’m the Delegate of the Synergy Mission Group that she belonged to. She was a faithful and really earnest member of our Mission Group. She was always present and she contributed much. She was a wisdom figure because of her experience. We were reading a book that we had a hard time understanding, and we turned to her for help and explanations. She really helped us. . . . She was teaching me French for my trip to France. I had my last class with her on Wednesday. I know she’ll be taking that trip with me.

Catherine Kirschbaum, Sister’s niece shared:

I’m so impressed with all of you. You were so good to her, and you’ve been good to us. . . . I can’t thank you enough for all you did for my aunt and for us.

When she would come for her home visits every three years, she was in her habit, and I thought she was beautiful. She would sit down and I’d sit at her feet, and she’d tell me stories. She didn’t talk about herself. She knew each and every one of us, our families, our children, and our grandchildren.

She told us that she was coming for a visit this summer, this coming July, but she didn’t give us an exact date. It was a shock when we heard about her stroke. I so wanted to be here for her. . . . When we saw her, it seemed as though she knew we were there. We talked to her and told her how much we loved her.

Mary Brown, Sister’s niece, also shared.

I have to tell you how much we enjoyed our stay here. . . . We have heard so many stories about my aunt, and you’ve introduced us to an Aunt Lois that we didn’t know.

We can remember times when she could come to visit—this was before the de-habiting of Aunt Lois. We can remember when we were small, and my sister talked about trying to see if Aunt Lois had hair under that habit. Every three years she came for a visit and had to stay at the hospital with a curfew. When she came, Catherine and Dorothy Ann had to read for her because they weren’t good readers, and she wanted to see if they had improved. She would correct them and give them pointers. She always brought “goodies” with her.

I have to tell you a funny story. Jane had a memory. Aunt Lois liked wine. She was somewhat of a wine connoisseur. Jane’s husband used to make 100-proof wine, and he thought he’d ask Aunt Lois what she thought of it. She took a drink of it and said that it was good, but her face said something else. We’re going to miss her.

Sister Lois’s funeral liturgy took place on June 4. Father Roland Calvert, OSFS, was the presider and homilist. Father said in part:

Sister Lois had a remarkably honed social conscience. She cared deeply about the marginated people in society—prisoners, gay and lesbian persons, African-Americans, and others who have felt the brunt of prejudice and rejection.

I had the opportunity to accompany her a number of times to the local prison. She would set up the curriculum for a course and ask guest speakers to come in and talk on specific subjects. Usually I was asked to take a literary or theological topic. The course this year was on different forms of literature. I had the class on parables and how they work. It was an unusually lively class as I remember it, with many sharp comments about the meaning of the parables.

As Father said, Sister Lois was given the gift of “wisdom in discourse,” and she now knows great happiness. She sees the source of all wisdom face-to-face.