Sister Anysia McGovern
1913-2008
In her 2004 interview, Sister Anysia McGovern gave some interesting information about her background. She described the Adams family, her mother’s family, as FFV’s (First Families of Virginia) and Protestant. She wondered if John Quincy Adams were a relative. Her Grandfather Adams was “a vegetarian, a gentleman, farmer, politician, and a Mason of the highest degree.” Her mother’s family eventually moved to Dresden, Ohio.
The McGoverns were from Ireland and Catholic. When they arrived in the States, they settled in Dresden. Her Grandfather McGovern was co-president of a local bank. His partner absconded with the bank’s money, and Grandfather McGovern spent a good part of his life making good what had been stolen.
Sister Anysia’s father, Patrick Earl McGovern, came from a family of ten children. It was in Dresden that he met Florence Adams and married her. Neither family approved of the marriage, considered a “mixed marriage” at that time, or accepted it; so Patrick McGovern and his wife left Dresden for Detroit, where he found work as a foreman at the Dodge plant. Their three children were born in Detroit: Marjorie (the future Sister Anysia), Robert, and Paul. Marjorie was welcomed by her parents on May 23, 1913. She was nearly six years old when her mother became a Catholic, and the children were baptized.
Marjorie attended public schools until she was ten years old, when in 1923 her parents registered all their children at Holy Name School (which opened in 1922) with the Adrian Dominican Sisters. The family belonged to Holy Name Parish, and they were active members. Before long, Florence McGovern began to teach at the parish school, and her little daughter’s mind settled on teaching as a possible future occupation. She also loved her Dominican teachers, who educated her well, including four years of piano lessons.
When it was time for high school Marjorie chose to attend St. Joseph Academy in Adrian. She loved the Academy, but her parents could not afford the tuition and after a year she returned home for her sophomore and junior years at St. Anthony High School. One day her mother came home and told the family that she had heard that Mother Mary Gerald Barry would not send any more sisters to their parish school because the parish had not sent any postulants to the Congregation. Marjorie began thinking of entering.
The country was undergoing the Great Depression, and the McGoverns were not spared. The mother lost her teaching position; and, because of the father’s illness and financial difficulties, they lost their home. Sister Anysia doesn’t divulge how they recovered from this misfortune. She does say that, although she was not yet sixteen years of age, she had decided to enter, and her parents gave their consent.
She arrived in Adrian on June 24, 1929, a month after her sixteenth birthday. Within a short time she was sent to Chicago to assist in fourth grade at St. Columbanus School for the first semester of that school year. She returned to Adrian in December, and received the habit and her religious name on December 30, then finished the year at St. Columbanus. She began her novitiate year in 1930, but did not complete it. Instead, in November she was sent to St. Agatha in Gagetown, Michigan, to replace a sister who had broken her ankle.
The year 1931-32 was her novitiate year, and she and her group professed their first vows on August 2, 1932. In her interview, she said that she told Mother Gerald that she loved to travel, and that she would not object if Mother wanted to change her frequently. It seems that Mother took her at her word. After another year at St. Columbanus and two years in Adrian as a full-time student at St. Joseph College (now Siena Heights University), she was on the go.
In June 1935, St. Joseph College awarded her a Bachelor’s degree with a major in mathematics and minors in science, French, Latin, and education. Her assignments after that were all on the high school level. She was sent back to Illinois, this time to Mount St. Mary Academy in St. Charles. There she taught math and Latin for three years. In 1938 she was transferred to Visitation in Detroit, where she spent a year and found herself with severe back pain. She had to have surgery, and was hospitalized for the first semester of the next year. She said in her interview, “The surgery, which was considered experimental, was very successful. I have never had any difficulty with my back since then.”
All of her assignments for the next fifteen-and-a-half years were in Michigan. In January 1940 she was sent to Resurrection in Lansing, where she spent two years and a half. She then spent a year at Sacred Heart in Hudson, three years at St. Ambrose in Detroit, a year at Dominican High School in Detroit, a semester at St. Paul in Owosso, a year and a half at St. Joseph in St. Joseph, a year and a half at SS. Peter and Paul in Ruth, and four and a half years at St. Alphonsus in Dearborn. In June 1955, as a result of summer study, the University of Detroit awarded her a Master’s degree with a major in education and minor in mathematics. It was during this time, in July 1946, that she lost her beloved father.
In August 1955 she was on the train for the Southwest, where she spent two years at Queen of Heaven High School in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She then returned to Michigan, and taught for two years at St. Lawrence High School in Utica.
Her next teaching experience was outside the States, at St. Anthony in Guayama, Puerto Rico. There she taught for two years. In her interview she said, “We sisters enjoyed ourselves and traveled a lot on the weekends. I probably laughed more in one day at St. Anthony’s than I would in a month at a school in the States. My students could find fun in the simplest things—they were effervescent and joyful.” She then spent two years in Florida: a year at St. Anastasia in Fort Pierce, and a year at St. Thomas Aquinas in Fort Lauderdale. The next two years were again in Michigan, at St. Alphonsus in Dearborn (for the second time).
After a year on a grant as a full-time graduate student at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, she was assigned to a year at St. Mary School in Royal Oak, Michigan. She then moved to California as a teacher at Bishop O’Dowd High School in Oakland for four years. In her interview, she spoke of weekend travel and attendance at math conventions. While there she received a second Master’s degree from Holy Names College, this time in mathematics.
The balance of her active years were in Florida in pastoral ministry. Open placement began in the early 1970s, and Sister Rosemary Ferguson, at that time Prioress of the Adrian Dominicans, sent out a letter stating that she hoped some sisters would minister among senior citizens in the South.
Sister Anysia offered her services. She served for a year at Holy Name Parish in Gulfport, then spent twenty-seven years in Sarasota at St. Martha and Incarnation Parishes, where she worked with the elderly, many of whom were lonely and bored, and organized tours for them in an effort to make their lives more meaningful. The tours that she organized were at first short pleasure trips, later trips to faraway places. She said in the interview:
I planned and led day trips to attractions throughout Florida, including dinner shows, Disney World, Sea World, etc… Then I began to organize large-scale tours to destinations in the U.S. and abroad.
It was during this time, in 1972, that she became a certified nurses’ aide. At this same time, also, her mother moved from Detroit to Sarasota, where she lived happily until her death in 1986.
In her interview, Sister Anysia said that during these twenty-seven years she lived with three other sisters, and that they all worked in the Sarasota parishes. After some years, however, because of restructuring, she was no longer needed in the parish work, but she continued living in the convent with the other sisters and organizing the tours
She mentioned tours to an impressive list of countries in Europe, the Mideast, New Zealand, Australia, the Orient, South America, Canada, and the Antarctic. She also led tours to places in the U.S., including Hawaii, the Southern states, the Southwest states, and Alaska. She said, “I thoroughly enjoyed planning tours and traveling… I feel so blessed to have gotten to visit all of the places I wanted to see!” In 1975, these tours were publicized in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and Our Sunday Visitor. The writeup in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune said in part:
She said, “At first I went around and talked to a lot of older people in town asking them the kind of things they’d like to do. Travel was high on the list. So I started off with a bus load of thirty-eight men and women bound for Disneyland. And from that first tour, things just took off.” She has arranged short trips for more than 1,000 area people, and she has accompanied seniors on trips as far away as Hawaii and Rome.
The tours are open to all denominations, and since Sister Anysia works indirectly with the five Catholic and Protestant church-sponsored Senior Friendship Centers in town, the trips usually serve to initiate people to the many and varied activities at the centers. “From the trips people will generally make new friends and find out about all the activities they can participate in… Loneliness and emotional poverty need not exist in Sarasota,” she said.
She held a realtor’s license, not in order to sell homes but in order to give good advice to the elderly who needed help in disposing of property at the death of a spouse. She said, “Too many elderly persons react too quickly and make a real estate decision that they regret for the rest of their days.”
In 1999 Sister Anysia retired and moved to a private residence in Tampa, where she lived for two years. During this time she again had surgery, colon surgery, but recuperated quickly. Health problems and macular degeneration brought her to Adrian in May 2001, where she died on February 28, 2008, three months before her ninety-fifth birthday.
Her wake-remembrance service was held on February 29 in St. Catherine Chapel. Sister Joan Sustersic, Prioress of Holy Rosary Mission Chapter, extended welcome and sympathy to Sister’s nieces, nephews, sisters-in-law, and Dominican friends. She summarized Sister Anysia’s life and ministry, and spoke of her last years.
Her lack of vision did not keep her from attending the General Chapter of 2004… As she was able, she continued her traveling. In 2004 she and [a companion] took an Amtrak trip from Chicago to California. In December 2004 they took the Queen Mary to places in the Caribbean.
In June 2007 she was diagnosed with a blood disorder. She wanted neither pinpoint diagnosis nor treatment because of her age—ninety- four. She thought if she could just get a transfusion from time to time, it would be good. However, when she felt the transfusions did no good, she declined them and asked to be placed in Hospice care.
Sister Mary Dougherty spoke of her respect and admiration for Sister Anysia.
Sister Carleen Maly, who had been Sister Anysia’s Chapter Prioress in Florida, also shared remembrances:
I recall one time in particular when I received word about her next adventure. She phoned and asked if I could join her group the following month on a “great trip” because one of the women who was scheduled to go was unable to travel. “Well,” I said, “Where are you going?” “To Yugoslavia,” was her reply, as though it was just an invitation to go out to dinner. I had to decline the invitation.
She was unique in the world, and had seen most of it. But she never forgot about the rest of us in the community, and I am sure she brought incredible joy to hundreds, if not thousands, of senior citizens who never would have had the joy of companionship and travel if it had not been for her.
Beverly Pelletier, a convert to Catholicism and a good friend, sent a fax. She wrote in part:
Sister Anysia first entered my life in Sarasota, Florida, in the mid 1990s… It was not until later, when I returned to Ann Arbor and Sister Anysia moved back to Adrian, that our true friendship began. We were kindred spirits; our birthdays were two days apart, and we were both travelers. We enjoyed going out together for dinner… Sister was an inspiration, an extremely supportive friend, and a guide to me… Her practical advice was of invaluable help in my teaching job at the University of Michigan, in my relationships with my family and friends, and in my daily life… She was always there when you needed her, whether you were suffering from severe depression, whether your feelings had been hurt, or whether your best cat had died.
During the last few months of Sister’s life, we talked daily on the phone. I will miss those conversations. She was always positive and upbeat, even when she felt weak, and was a source of comfort and strength to me. She kept up with the news, and was alert and incisive to the last. She had a marvelous sense of humor, and was an interesting conversationalist.
Sister Anysia’s funeral liturgy was celebrated on March 1, 2008. Father Roland Calvert, OSFS, was the presider and homilist. He ended his homily by saying:
Sister Anysia, who loved to travel so much, has now embarked on the greatest journey of her life… She returns to her Creator, and rejoins her loving family and friends. Here she will experience the variety and richness of the universe in a way that we cannot even begin to imagine in this life. We rejoice with her this day.