Sister Marie Siena Chmara
1924-2011
Sister Marie Siena began her autobiography by writing about the origin of the family name, Chmara. She explained that its origin is Polish and that her father’s grandparents and her mother’s great-grandparents came to the United States from Poland in the eighteen hundreds and settled in Bay City, Michigan.
Both her parents, Edmund and Marion (Jansheski) Chmara, grew up in Bay City. The Chmara’s and Jansheski’s belonged to St. Stanislaus Parish, but the families were not close. However, Marion Jansheski disliked the Chmara twins, Edmund and his brother, who irked her by chasing her. She was relieved when her family moved to Detroit so that her father, a musician, could accept the position of organist at Holy Redeemer Church.
After a few years, Edmund also went to Detroit. He studied pharmacy, and it is interesting to note that one of his fellow students was named Charlie Cunningham. Edmund became a pharmacist, and opened a drug store. One day, while at Park Davis, a pharmaceutical company, he again met Marion, who was a secretary there. They soon married.
As time went on, Edmund Chmara became very successful and owned much property. He and his wife became the parents of three children. On August 3, 1924, their second child was born and baptized Elizabeth Ann. She was preceded by a sister who was named Phyllis, and followed several years later by a brother, Theodore.
Phyllis, who was three years older than Elizabeth, started first grade at St. Brigid Parish. When she arrived home from school the two little girls “played school,” with Phyllis as the teacher and Elizabeth as her student. At the early age of four, Elizabeth knew that she wanted to become a teacher.
Another interesting fact that Sister Marie Siena wrote about was her father’s pride in his two little daughters. Every Sunday the little girls would be dressed in their finery, and he would take them for a short ride on the streetcar so that he could show them off. “There was no father more proud of his family than he was.” But:
The crash in 1929 destroyed the financial status of my father. The only assets he was able to retain were our home in Detroit and our summer home on Lake Erie near Monroe, Michigan. Like everyone else, we became “poor overnight.” However, our family was close and we children were not aware of the economic crisis.
During the summers the family lived at their home on Lake Erie. There they had no running water or electricity, but the children were able to play and swim. The girls learned to sew on a treadle machine and to cook on a kerosene stove. Their home was situated in a place where it was possible to go from the United States to Canada by boat.
I can remember my mother calling from the house, “Kids, get in here and get on the floor!” We realized what it was after a couple of times. It was the rum runners going out or coming in, and there would be people chasing them and shooting. As soon as my mother heard the shooting, we were in the house and down on the floor. So there is a little historical aspect here.
Sister wrote, “I had my first three years of school two times, once taught by my sister and once again by a wonderful Dominican Sister.” She began her schooling in first grade at St. Brigid School in 1930, admired her teachers, and her desire to become a teacher grew as the years passed. Her years included a year of piano, and she finished eighth grade in 1938. Phyllis was attending St. Alphonsus High School in Dearborn, which necessitated a long streetcar ride, and was beginning her senior year. Elizabeth joined her for her first year in high school, but could not continue since she became very carsick. As a result, the family moved to Dearborn, close to St. Alphonsus High School.
Elizabeth graduated from St. Alphonsus High School in 1942, and had won a scholarship to Siena Heights College (now University) in Adrian. Because of a lack of money, she worked as a riveter in a bomber plant during the summers to earn money to pay her next year’s tuition. It was a government requirement that the workers attend a math class; and Elizabeth, who was a math major in college, tutored the other students. They were all women who had very little education. Some were illiterate. “The women thought I was brilliant!” Her mother would not allow her to wear the denim overalls that the other workers wore, and she reported to work every day in slacks.
She continued her college life at Siena Heights, ending her evenings with a stop in chapel. One night she suddenly realized that God was calling her to become a Dominican Sister. “I felt like St. Paul being knocked off his horse,” she wrote. She had been dating a young man with thoughts of marriage in the future, but knew that she had to do what God wanted her to do. At first, both her parents and teachers did not believe that she was serious.
She became a postulant on June 27, 1945, twenty-one years of age, and at the end of her third year at Siena Heights College. With her group, she received the habit and her religious name on January 4, 1946. She had continued her studies at Siena Heights College, and in June 1946 she received a bachelor’s degree with a major in math and minors in chemistry, physics, philosophy, Spanish, and English. As a result, during her novitiate she taught a class to her fellow novices. She professed her first vows on January 5, 1947, and did post-graduate work at Siena Heights for the second semester of that school year.
In August 1947, her first mission assignment sent her to Detroit, beginning her stay of twelve years at Dominican High School as a teacher of religion, math, and science. She studied at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor during the summers, and she received a master’s degree in math in August 1951 with a minor in statistics. During the following summers she studied at Wayne State University in Detroit, and in June 1959 was awarded a doctorate with a major in research and evaluation, and a minor in educational psychology and guidance. She also earned certificates as a school psychologist, and in math, chemistry, guidance, and counseling.
In 1959 she returned to Siena Heights College, this time as a teacher of math education. Her father died in 1962, and in 1964 she was sent to Tampa, Florida, to be near her mother. There she set up a guidance program and taught math for a year at Tampa Catholic High School.
She began, in 1965, her service of thirty-eight years to Barry College (now University) in Miami. She taught for a year, served as Dean of Students for three years, taught again for twenty-four years, and ended her service with ten years as a consultant and specialist in teacher certification. She began as an instructor, progressed to assistant professor, associate professor, and then full professor. During the summer of 1969, her summers of study and college teaching were broken by travel through Europe and Israel. In the year 1993-94 she suffered from several medical problems, and had to take some time off for recuperation. Her mother died in 1994, and that caused the year to be even harder for her. It is also interesting to note that her summers of study included eighteen semester hours in computer training.
She loved study and teaching.
In my career as a teacher, I have been providing for my students not only the content of the course they were taking, but hopefully also the values that will last forever.
I can’t tell you how happy I have been teaching for fifty-six years. . . . I want to thank those who made my life what it was as an Adrian Dominican. To have the privilege to spend more than fifty-six years in the field of education was something more than I ever could have dreamed of happening. I wanted to be a teacher and I never thought of what the future would bring. The future could not have been any happier.
In 2003 she retired as professor emeritus and, she wrote, “assumed my latest role as a retired educator.” The death of her sister Phyllis in 2004 brought a period of sadness into her life of retirement. Sister Marie Siena lived in Barry Villa until February 2006, when she began experiencing “small deaths,” which is how she described her physical and mental weaknesses. These led to her return to the Dominican life Center/Maria. She wrote:
I can only say that my last years have been gifts from God. The atmosphere at the DLC has been conducive to a growing spirituality. There is time for prayer and time for pondering one’s future. . . . It is planning for a new future with God as a central figure. I would like to thank all those who are responsible for my latest experiences of getting re-acquainted with the Lord my God.
God took her to eternity on March 24, 2011, at the age of eighty-six.
Sister Marie Siena’s wake-remembrance service was held on March 28. Sister Jo Gaugier extended sympathy and welcomed the relatives who had come to bid her farewell, her brother Ted, her niece Claudia, her nephew Bill, and others. Many friends were present also, including her many Dominican friends. Sister Jo summarized Sister Marie Siena’s life and ministry, and introduced those who had prepared or sent remembrances.
Sister Beverly Bobola wrote in part:
I arrived as an instructor at Barry College in 1974. Sister Marie Siena bid me welcome by arranging a sunrise breakfast cookout on Miami Beach. . . . She said that everyone needs to experience this at least once. It was a memorable early morning outing.
She was a professional educator. Her approach to education left no doubt that she promoted excellence in her teaching standards. . . . While encouraging students/student teachers, she left no doubt in their minds that mediocrity did not have a place in a future teacher’s life. She was highly respected at Barry University both as an individual and as a professor of education. Sister began a Chapter of Kappa Delta Pi, a national collegiate honor society for selective students and faculty in the School of Education.
Sister Evelyn Piche also sent a remembrance. She wrote in part:
I have such wonderful memories of Sister Marie Siena’s generosity in promoting academic excellence and a caring spirit by her example. . . . Her students treasured her, and many contacted her “over the years,” remembering her fairness and her “hands on” way of making Research Methods understandable and applicable. Can you imagine students being disappointed if class had to be canceled?
Sister Agnes Louise Stechschulte remembered:
In the 1980s Sister had a student, Mrs. Andreas, who enrolled in a course just to enrich her mind. It was in one of Sister’s courses that Divine Providence was most evident. At this time, a speaker scheduled for the graduation ceremony became ill and near panic ensued. Sister Marie Siena voiced her concern, and Mrs. Andreas offered to provide a speaker—a visiting friend, Hubert Humphrey. Sister introduced her to the President of Barry, and a most fortuitous friendship ensued. Mr. and Mrs. Andreas became generous benefactors in the years to come. . . . It was through her contact with Sister Marie Siena that Barry was the recipient of their generosity, and also that of their influential friends.
Sister Rose Celeste O’Connell, Secretary of the Congregation, also spoke.
I had the honor of being in Sister Marie Siena’s Statistics: Tests and Measurements class. We were a motley group. Even though there were graphs and charts that would have made the class work much easier, she insisted that we do the math from scratch. We managed it somehow. I’m not all that good at math, but for some reason I seemed to do rather well in that class.
When it came time for our final exam, we discovered that it was a take-home test. There were several men in the class who were law-enforcement types and who were struggling all the way through. Seeing that I was getting along so well, they offered me $50 apiece if I would do the math for them. I didn’t take them up on it, however.
She was a wonderful, strong teacher, and when we finished the class we knew what we were supposed to know.
The funeral liturgy for Sister Marie Siena took place on March 29. Father Robert Kelly, OP, Motherhouse chaplain, was the presider and homilist. She was then laid to rest in the cemetery laid out in circles by Mother Camilla Madden so many years ago.
Although study and teaching appear to have been the most important aspects of her life, it is evident that Sister Marie Siena treasured her Dominican vocation and felt that her study and teaching were blessed by her vows.