Sister Helene Burns
1921-2008

In her autobiography, written in 1999, Sister Helene Burns included a humorous incident that occurred shortly after her birth on June 22, 1921. “My unmarried aunt took one look at me and said, ‘What a homely baby!’ She later told me that I was beet red and had lots of jet black hair that stuck straight out all over.” Three brothers (Jack, James, and Ned) had preceded Helene into the family. She wrote, “I think they were happy to get something different.” Another brother (Bob) was born three years later. As time passed, Helene became much better looking, and she acquired the nickname of “Honey.”

Her paternal grandfather was from Ireland. With his wife and family, he left Ireland for the United States, and settled in Rockford, Illinois. Upon the death of his first wife, he remarried. Sister’s mother’s family, the Fernbacks, came from Germany, and had also made their home in Rockford. There James Burns and Irene Marie Fernback met and married. Irene Fernback was raised a Lutheran, but converted to Catholicism upon her marriage. She told her daughter once that she thought “he wouldn’t have married me unless I was Catholic!”

Both parents were nature lovers. They took their children hiking, swimming, on picnics, hunting, skiing, fishing, and boating. Sister Helene wrote that her father built boats with outboard motors in the basement of their home, and that he also built a long bobsled that his children used on the ski slopes in the winter.

Even though the Great Depression had descended on the country, the Burns family was never in want. James Burns worked as a factory foreman, and always provided his family with essentials. Helene began her education at St. Mary School in Rockford, and met the Sinsinawa Dominicans when she transferred to St. Patrick School in 1928. Her high school years were spent at Muldoon High School, with the Adrian Dominicans. She graduated in June 1939, and on June 25 she was on her way to Adrian to enter the postulate. Her niece, Ann Ford, who was prevented from attending the wake because of bad weather, submitted a long tribute that was read. She wrote in part:

Honey was a tomboy, loved dogs and going fishing right along with her brothers. But she was a heartbreaker, too. She had a boyfriend while she attended Bishop Muldoon High School. Her brother Bob says that this young man was devastated when she turned down his marriage proposal to join the Adrian Dominican Sisters after graduation.

Her parents were not happy about Helene’s entrance into the Adrian Dominican Congregation, but they respected her right to choose and did not stand in her way. She wrote, “Once I got to Adrian, I knew I was where I belonged. Observing silence was my biggest problem.” She received the habit and her religious name (Sister James Mary) on January 4, 1940, and professed her first vows on January 7, 1941.

Within a short time she was in a car bound for Detroit, where she taught for six years at St. Brigid School, a few years in third grade and then in seventh grade. In 1947 she was changed to Queen of Angels in Chicago where she continued teaching on the junior high level for a year. She was happy to be near her mother who died in April of that year. She was then sent back to Detroit, to teach middle grade and junior high students at St. Edward School. As a result of summer study, Siena Heights College (now University) in Adrian awarded her a Bachelor’s Degree with a major in history and minors in English and Spanish. After five years at St. Edward, she was transferred to Blessed Sacrament in Toledo, Ohio, again with junior high students.

In April 1954, she was sent to Florida: first to Sacred Heart in Pensacola with middle grade students, in 1957 with grade three at St. Matthew in Jacksonville, then back to Sacred Heart as superior, principal, and teacher of eighth grade for four years. In October 1961 she returned to Rockford for her father’s funeral. She then spent two years with junior high students at the Colegio Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. During the summers she studied at Barry College (now University) in Miami, and in July 1958 the College awarded her a Master’s degree with a major in education and minor in history.

She was brought back to the States in 1964, and remained in Michigan for the balance of her ministry. First, she was assigned to Precious Blood in Detroit. Two years later, she was sent to Wyandotte, for a year; to St. Leo in Flint as principal for two years, and to St. Mary in Rockwood for three years.

Along the way, she succumbed to an addiction to alcohol. In her autobiography, she defined an alcoholic as “someone who drinks when he/she doesn’t want to.” She wrote:

I see that my approach to life, before my alcoholism set in and until I found recovery, was one of trying to reach unattainable goals: in my spiritual life, in my work, and especially in my relationships with others. I failed in all three.

She attended a four-week treatment program at Lutheran General Hospital in Chicago, where the attendees were told that Alcoholics Anonymous was the only “way out.” When she left the treatment program, she began attending the AA meetings. At one of the meetings, a man told her that it was a good thing that she was there—that it helped the others to see that this addiction could happen to anyone. She wrote that at these meetings she met “professional people, housewives, factory workers, people from prison, people having many other kinds of trouble, and ‘bums.’” She came to see her addiction as “a blessing in disguise.” The sharing that she heard in the AA meetings “shook my soul.”

She determined to help those afflicted with this addiction, to study alcoholism and its treatment. Grants were available, and in 1971 she was licensed as an alcoholism therapist after study at the University of Detroit. This was obviously not an overly popular field, since she was only the twenty-third person licensed in the State of Michigan. As a result of study during summer 1973, she earned a certificate in alcohol education from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. In the summers that followed, she earned several other certificates and licenses pertaining to alcoholism treatment from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, and other colleges.

In 1972 she began nine years of service with the Acute Alcoholism Service in Detroit, first as an inner-city therapist, then as executive director and finally as director. In February 1982 she served for two months at Henry Ford Hospital in Dearborn as a substance abuse therapist, then accepted a position at the Alcohol and Abuse Center in Monroe as a counselor, where she served for eight years. A writeup in Inbetween for February 1989 described her ministry.

Gratitude to God and a sense of freedom are words Helene Burns, OP, hears frequently in her ministry. The words come from recovering drug/alcohol abusers.

Sister Helene’s case load is about thirty-five, twenty-five of whom have alcohol or drug problems. The other ten are spouses or children of the addicted. Clients are introduced to the twelve-step program, which includes spiritual awakening and acknowledgement of dependence on God.

She has been asked frequently to give retreats for women whose lives have been affected by drugs/alcohol abuse. The programs, both at the center in Monroe and with the support group in Detroit, have one purpose, according to Sister Helene. “We’re trying to better people’s lives; everything we do is to make people’s lives better!”

It seems that other religious women, although a small minority, find themselves afflicted with this unwelcome sickness. At the wake, Sister Patricia McCarty said:

It was April 23, 1979, when my dear friend Sister Katie McGrail summoned, at my request, Sister Helene Burns to come and walk with me as I was finally able to acknowledge my alcoholism. Since I was scheduled for serious surgery, I was unable to go into a treatment center; and, therefore, began a program of ninety AA meetings in ninety days. Sister Helene accompanied me to every one of those meetings—and they were all over the city of Detroit and its environs, and at every possible time of the morning or night.

Sister Helene Burns mentored many women religious into sobriety. She began an AA group for women religious who were dealing with alcoholism—Dominicans, IHM Sisters, Felician Sisters, and others were in that group. Her influence with women religious and in AA itself can never be underestimated!

The writeup in Inbetween told its readers that this group began with three members, but in 1989 it numbered fourteen members from seven different religious congregations. What the numbers are now, we do not know. But, certainly, we can agree that Sister Helene’s alcohol addiction was “a blessing in disguise,” for it led to help for many people.

As the years went on, Sister Helene’s health began to fail. In 1988 she had heart surgery; and as her energy level decreased, she had to curtail her work. She retired, but volunteered her services. In 1990 she began six years at Dominican High School in Detroit as office assistant. Her last volunteer ministry was as a math tutor at Lincoln Elementary School in Warren, Michigan. She wrote humorously, “The criteria for being one of my students is that the kids must be the dumbest ones in their math classes.”

Again in 1999 she had heart surgery, this time a valve replacement, and after a time she found it necessary to stop tutoring. During her time in Warren, she lived for several years with Sisters Patricia Sporer and Adrienne Shaffer. At the wake, Sister Patricia shared a story about Sister Helene’s kindness to her mother.

Sister Helene would take dinners to my mom. They would shop together for yarn. They would watch TV together. Not only did Sister Adrienne and I miss Sister Helene when she came to Adrian, but my mom would say how much she missed her friend. I think it is especially significant that Sister Helene went to her reward on the one-month anniversary of my dear mother. We certainly admired Sister Helene’s awareness and admission that she needed assistance and her decision to come to Maria. She said that she missed us, but had to admit that she really did miss the dogs even more. They, as we, did miss her, too.

In November 2001 Sister Helene returned to Adrian and moved into the Dominican Life Center/Maria, where she remained until her death on February 4, 2008.

Sister Helene’s wake-remembrance service was held in St. Catherine Chapel on February 6. Sister Joan Sustersic, Prioress of Holy Rosary Mission Chapel, opened the meeting, welcomed those present, and extended sympathy. Sister Helene’s family was unable to attend the wake because of the snowstorm in Illinois. Sister Joan summarized Sister Helene’s life and ministry, and spoke of her last years.

She found it difficult in that she had to leave her community in Warren, as well as her beloved dogs. But she adjusted to life at the DLC aided by Sister Clara Patricks, who was a wonderful companion in helping her in the adjustment process and beyond, as Sister Helene’s memory began to fail. Sister Clara took Sister Helene under her wing, and was a blessing to her—even in her final hours.

Sister Helene died peacefully at the age of eighty-six, and after having spent sixty-eight years in the Congregation.

Sister Helene’s niece, Ann Ford, thanked those who had cared for her aunt. She shared stories about camping trips that her family took, and about Sister Helene’s enjoyment in accompanying them on these trips. She added:

My mother Jean, her sister-in-law, especially adored Sister Honey and we always looked forward to the rare opportunity when she could come to visit… When I was little, and Sister Honey was coming, I used to sit in the grass at the end of our street for hours, determined to wait for her car to come around the corner. There was just something about her that filled the room with joy, and I knew at a very young age that Sister Honey was very special.

Even near the end of her life, as she was well into her illness, Sister Honey retained her charismatic personality and that mischievous sparkle in her eyes.

Sister Helene’s funeral liturgy was held on February 7. Father Roland Calvert, OSFS, was the presider and homilist. Father said in part:

One of the beautiful books by Henri Nouwen is called The Wounded Healer. He makes the point that we all have the ability to help others heal. But the ability comes only when we recognize our own weakness, our own need of healing, our own wounded-ness… It’s the same idea that St. Paul developed: “When I am weak, then I am strong.” When I give my life over to a Higher Power and recognize that I’m not in charge, then I can begin to deal with my own problems and become a source of strength for others.

The Divine Potter works on all of us, and we have to admit that there’s a great deal of work needed. But in God’s hands, that which is misshapen can become beautiful again. Sister Helene gave her life to the Divine Potter and built her life on the rock of commitment to Christ.

Father reminded the assembly that God can take human beings, with their “multitude of imperfections and weaknesses,” and shape them into something beautiful, a work of art. This God has done for Sister Helene, and her beauty will shine for all eternity.