Sister Joanetta Bruene
1918-2011
In the last paragraph of her autobiography, Sister Joanetta wrote:
My heart overflows with gratitude and love for the wonderful life with which God has blessed me. Each new challenge was exciting and revealing of God’s care and guiding hand for each of us. We laughed and cried, prayed and played, studied and taught together, learning and growing in this wonderful Congregation founded on love, truth, and charity.
Alfred Bruene, Sister’s father, was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her mother, Elizabeth Ann Lawler, was a native Chicagoan. They met at the Oldsmobile Company in Chicago where they both worked in one of the offices. On Thanksgiving Day, 1914, they were married. The maid of honor was Elizabeth’s sister, who soon entered the Poor Clare Monastery in Evansville, Indiana, and was known as Sister Mary Dolores.
Three children were born to Alfred and Elizabeth Bruene: Loretta, Betty Louise, and John. Betty (the future Sister Joanetta) joined the family on April 15, 1918. All three children attended Our Lady of Peace School. Sister Joanetta wrote of her happy grade school days: walking to and from school with friends, playing and biking with the neighborhood children, exchanging library books, celebrating birthdays.
Her sister Loretta attended St. Thomas the Apostle High School with the Sinsinawa Dominicans, but Betty chose to attend Aquinas High school with the Adrian Dominicans. She still walked to and from school with friends, but often stayed after school for various activities. She worked on committees, put up bulletin boards, was active in volleyball. She enjoyed being with the Sisters and before long thoughts of joining them were in her mind.
During her sophomore year, misfortune befell the family. While playing baseball, John fell and became ill with osteomyelitis (infection of the bone marrow), causing a long stay in the hospital for him and necessitating the use of crutches later. In her junior year an important event took place. Betty attended a reception ceremony in Adrian, where she was impressed by the long line of novices in their white habits, the solemn ceremony, the beautiful chapel and grounds. She wrote, “Haunting thoughts came and went. Sometimes I wished they would go away.” But they did not go away. Shortly after graduation in June 1935, her decision to become a Sister was made. Her parents did not object, but considered her to be young for such a decision. She was seventeen. Her father said, “If you are going to be a Sister, I want you to be a good one.”
On October 5, 1935, she and five other Aquinas graduates arrived in Adrian. With their group they received the habit and their religious names on August 17, 1936. They professed their first vows on August 23, 1937.
Within a short time of profession Sister Joanetta was on her way to St. Paul School in Owosso, Michigan, where she began her teaching ministry with middle grade children. She loved the children, and found the small town’s history interesting. These were the Great Depression years, and she wrote that they were very poor. Nevertheless, they managed to share with “a steady stream of ‘gents’ from the railroad tracks nearby.” These, of course, were men who were wandering around the country seeking jobs and begging meals.
In 1941 she was transferred to Illinois, where she taught primary children at St. Patrick in Joliet. The new phonics system created by Sisters Leonita Noetzel and Rose Norine Gauthier was beginning, and Sister Joanetta’s children responded enthusiastically. Soon she was teaching in the summer demonstration schools. She also studied during the summers at Siena Heights College (now University) in Adrian. In 1944 the College awarded her a bachelor’s degree with a major in history and minors in English and Latin.
Things changed a bit when in 1949 she was transferred to a school that had just opened, Assumption in Jacksonville, Florida, again as a primary teacher. Some of the parents were southerners and did not want their children to speak like “Yankees.” At first the phonics system was a problem there, but in time it was accepted.
In 1953 she was brought back to the Midwest, and again assigned to teach primary children at St. Henry School in Cleveland, Ohio. There she had some trouble with her back. After a year she was again sent to Florida, where she taught at St. Patrick in Miami Beach for seven years, four years on the primary level and three years on the high school level. She loved the ocean and Florida’s climate, and her back trouble ended. During the summers she studied at Loyola University in Chicago, and in 1954 received a master’s degree in English.
Late summer 1961 brought a change in her life. She was appointed principal/superior at St. Anthony in Fort Lauderdale, a rapidly growing school in a rapidly growing city. During the summers she taught at Barry College (now University) in Miami. After a six-year successful term at St. Anthony, she was assigned to Barry College as Chairperson of the Graduate School, a challenging position. Periods of sadness entered her life in 1967 and 1969 when she lost her mother and father.
In 1970 Sister Joanetta was one of the four Sisters elected co-provincials of the Southern Province, St. Rose of Lima Province, with the office at Rosarian Academy in West Palm Beach. Sisters Veronica Gonthier, Mary Joseph Kennedy, and Helen Duggan served with her. She wrote, “Working together with our Sisters who were frightened or doubtful of the changes brought new understandings and hope and, at times, doubt for all of us. God was there.”
She became a principal again in 1973, this time at Our Lady of Lourdes School in Melbourne. This school was near the NASA Space Center, where many fathers of the children worked. During her time there she was one of an accreditation team that visited Catholic schools, and her picture appeared in the May 30, 1975, issue of the Miami Voice. She spent the 1976-77 year teaching for a second time at St. Patrick in Miami Beach. In fall 1977 she accepted a position in the Miami Diocesan Education Department as Director of Schools in Broward County. She held this position for three years.
During this time she also became a member of the Barry College Board of Trustees. In 1977 she was one of the judges in a poster competition sponsored by the Miami Voice, and her picture, with other judges, appeared in the November 18, 1977, issue of that newspaper. When she left the Diocesan position in 1980, she became Director of Development and Public Relations at Rosarian Academy.
Interest in working with the sick and homebound was growing within her. In 1984 she attended the University of Chicago Medical Center for a year, earning a certificate in Advanced Clinical Pastoral Education. She then became a chaplain at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Illinois, where she ministered for fourteen years, broken by a semester of study at the Weston School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, ending in a certificate in theology.
In a December 30, 1988, article in an Illinois newspaper, Press Publications, on the modern religious sister, she was one of the Sisters who was pictured and her style of life described. Of the year spent at Weston School of Theology she wrote, “We lived with women from all over the world; saw the area of Massachusetts and beyond. The Jesuits and Dominicans had much in common.”
In 1999 she had serious surgery, and she retired from active ministry in 2000. After living for a year in Lombard, Illinois, she returned to Adrian in 2001, where she became a resident at the Dominican Life Center/Maria. God took her to eternity on May 8, 2011.
A wake-remembrance service was held for Sister Joanetta on May 11 in St. Catherine Chapel. Sister Jo Gaugier, Prioress of Holy Rosary Mission Chapter, opened the service. She extended sympathy, welcomed the relatives and friends present, and summarized Sister Joanetta’s life and ministry. She finished by sharing:
Earlier today Sisters who lived with or knew Sister Joanetta gathered to remember their experiences of her. Memories were of a person who was generously helpful, a great friend, a principal who was calm and helped students with their life problems, also a gifted interior decorator.
Responding to a family crisis, she flew home. At the airport, she grabbed her suitcase and rushed off, only to find later that it actually was just like her suitcase but belonged to a worried golf pro, full of shoes, golf balls, etc.
Marie Coglianese, Director of Pastoral Care and Education at Loyola Health System, sent a lengthy and most complimentary tribute for Sister Joanetta. She wrote in part:
Loyola loved Sister Joanetta and Joanetta loved Loyola. She took pride in working as a staff chaplain and loved her ministry. . . . She brought such grace and energy to the Pastoral Care Department. . . . More importantly, however, was the deep faith and genuine love she so generously shared with patients who were critically ill or dying. . . . She also ministered to their families. . . . Patients and their families experienced Joanetta’s prayerful, supportive, and encouraging presence on a daily basis.
With another member of the team, Father Tom Heskin, she was instrumental in beginning our Volunteer Communion Ministry Program. Recruiting, teaching, and supervising these Eucharistic Ministers was done with so much grace and passion. . . . Her friendships with the housekeeping staff were very special. Many of the housekeepers were among the working poor, and Joanetta really felt compassion for them.
Anyone who walked with Joanetta, or anyone with whom Joanetta walked, knew that God was present. God’s mercy and love were evident. As a woman of Faith, she brought peace and hope throughout all her years of ministry. Thank you, dear Adrian Dominicans, for sharing her with us. . . . We are very grateful to have worked, laughed, and cried with her through her fourteen years at Loyola.
John Bruene, Sister Joanetta’s nephew, brought testimonials from family members:
From cousin Mern Guest: Sister Joanette should be appreciated for the way that she linked our families. My mother Elsie got in touch with Sister through the years because she did not want to lose track of her brother Al’s family. Al was Sister’s father. My best memories are the times I spent with her at the ocean.
From niece Carol Rockhill, who is a medical doctor: I know how much Sister Joanetta loved all of us and how much she and Dad [Sister’s brother] meant to each other. I remember that one of her favorite stories was how, when she and Dad were home alone (when they were young), Dad wanted to be pushed through the laundry chute. This was all hilarious until he got stuck! She had to run over to a neighbor’s house to get an adult to rescue Dad—who, of course, could laugh about it once he recovered.
I remember with great pride the day she showed me the burn unit and other units she was working on at Loyola Hospital, and the many people who greeted her and stopped to tell me what a great inspiration and help she had been to so many people. At the time I was applying for medical school and I remember how it felt like she was taking me under her wing, showing me the medical world that she was a part of and giving me guidance on my journey into such a world.
From Bob Bruene, nephew: I will always remember Sister Joanetta for her love for her family and, in particular, for our dad. She had been very close to him growing up, and, I believe, was like a second mother to him when they were young. She obviously adored him and the feeling was, of course, mutual.
As a child, I remember that we saw Sister only once or twice a year. . . . She had a quiet, dry sense of humor that was matched with her truly genius intellect and her humble servant’s heart. She gave herself completely to the Lord, and mentored and inspired us all to seek Him in our own lives.
Please communicate our sincere love and thanks to everyone there who has taken such great care of our wonderful aunt.
Sister Joanetta’s funeral liturgy took place on May 12. Father Robert Kelly, OP, Motherhouse chaplain, was the presider and homilist.
As was said of her, Sister Joanetta walked graciously, gently, and humbly with God. She continues that walk, but now in the real presence of the God whom she loved and served for so many years.