Sister Ann Stephanie Callopy
1915-2008
In her fascinating autobiography, Sister Ann Stephanie Callopy described herself as a quiet child. She wrote, “I still find it more comfortable to stay in the background rather than put myself forward. I prefer good books, good music, sewing, knitting, walking to more active pursuits. I like study.”
An interesting part of her autobiography is the family history that she relates, but space precludes repeating it all here. Her father, Marcus Callopy, came from a Bavarian, German, and Irish ancestry. Emily Cecilia Grennan, the young woman he met at a Knights of Columbus picnic and soon married, came from an Irish and Dutch heritage.
Emily’s family had settled in Alabama, and were kindly slave owners. They knew Henry Clay and General Ulysses S. Grant. In later years, they moved to Chicago. Marcus’ family had lived along the Wabash River, and his grandmother had played with children of the Miami Indian tribe. Both the Indians and their white friends wept when the Miami tribe was sent to the reservation in Oklahoma.
Following their marriage, Marcus and Emily Callopy lived in Chicago, were members of St. Philip Neri Parish, and became the parents of four daughters, Mary Rita, Jean Elizabeth, Carol Catherine, and Marcella Anne. Jean Elizabeth (the future Sister Ann Stephanie) was born on July 9, 1915
In the autobiography, we learn, too, of a traumatic experience that changed Jean’s life and that of her mother and sisters. It happened thirteen days after her fourth birthday. Marcus Callopy worked as a teller at the Illinois Trust and Savings Bank in Chicago. On July 21, 1919, about ten minutes before closing time, he left his area for the stenographic department intending to amend a letter. A Goodyear blimp that had been traveling above the city caught fire and crashed through the bank’s skylight. Ten of the bank employees were killed, and twenty-seven were injured. Marcus Callopy was one of those injured, but he died at the hospital two days later. Left behind were three small daughters and a pregnant wife. Marcella Ann was born a month after her father’s funeral.
Following her husband’s death, Emily Callopy moved to St. Columbanus Parish near her family. Sister Ann Stephanie wrote that “through hard work and selflessness, she provided grade and high school education for her four daughters.” All of them attended St. Columbanus School and Aquinas High School. Jean was awarded a scholarship to St. Xavier College for a year, after which she worked for a newspaper syndicate for several years and took classes at DePaul University.
She had been attracted to the religious life for some time, and on June 22, 1947, she entered the postulate at Adrian, Michigan, two weeks before her thirty-second birthday. Within a short time she was on the train for Florida, where she taught third and fourth graders at Rosarian Academy in West Palm Beach. At the wake, her good friend Sister Clare Gleeson remembered that time.
I was teaching downtown at St. Ann High School, but we all lived together at Rosarian. She was the envy of all the Rosarian grade school teachers. It so happened that her Aunts Gid [Geraldine] and Anne were teachers in the Chicago public schools, and they sent her plans and decorations periodically for her classroom She was never at a loss for new and positive ways of teaching !
Jean returned to Adrian in December, received the habit and her religious name on December 30, and entered into the novitiate year.
Sister Marcine Klemm, a member of Sister Ann Stephanie’s “crowd,” remembered:
She was thirty-two years old, and we used to call her the mother of our crowd. She had administrative experience and ability, so she was Sister Edmund’s [Harrison] secretary. If any of us were called to the novice mistress’s office, she would feel bad… At times, when we were lonesome, she was always there to talk to us and we were able to confide in her.
On December 31, 1948, Sister Ann Stephanie and her group professed first vows. For the next few months she studied at Siena Heights College (now University), and received a Bachelor’s degree in June 1949 with a major in English and minors in history, Spanish, and commercial subjects.
She was then sent to Mother of Divine Grace in Buffalo, New York, where she taught in the middle grades and junior high for four years. Brought back to the Midwest, the rest of her teaching years were in Illinois, beginning with second graders at St. Denis in Chicago for two years. In her autobiography, she wrote that she taught religion and phonics in three second grade classrooms of sixty children each, and prepared them for First Communion. “To this day, I pray that all those children knew at least something about what they were doing.” She had been studying at DePaul University in Chicago during the summers, and in June 1955 the University awarded her a Master’s degree in English.
In 1955 she began her high school ministry at Muldoon High School in Rockford, where she taught English, Latin, math, and religion for eight years. In addition, she was the yearbook and newspaper moderator, and sacristan for the school chapel. Sister Clare Gleeson was the principal. She said, “Living with her was a delight. She was an excellent teacher, well liked by the students and parents.”
Sister Ann Stephanie returned to the elementary level in 1963 as principal and superior at St. Edmund in Oak Park. She described her six years there as “happy ones,” with a faculty made up of fine young sisters and dedicated lay teachers, a student body of bright children, and several wonderful mothers who were always willing to help.
During summer 1966, her aunts took her and Sister Clare Gleeson to Ireland. In her file, is a long writeup describing this trip. It is plain that she enjoyed it immensely. She also wrote of a retreat that she made in summer 1992 at Mount Carmel Center in Ontario, Canada, near Niagara Falls. “What a thrill to go on the Maid of the Mist to within a few yards of both Canadian and American Falls!”
After a successful six-year term in administration at St. Edmund, she was assigned to Aquinas High School in Chicago as a teacher of shorthand, typewriting, and general business for five years. She wrote that the convent was demolished, and she was happy that the beautiful stations created by Sister Helene O’Connor were given to the Servants of the Paraclete, a “wonderful congregation” that works with troubled priests and brothers. Sister Mary O’Neill, who was teaching at Aquinas at that time, said at the wake:
At that time, the members of the Aquinas faculty were strong Dominicans, firm in their convictions and willing to work for excellence… Sister Ann Stephanie came as a woman filled with belief in life in common and building what was needed for Aquinas High School. She didn’t teach her beloved English. She was chair of the Business Department. In our home she supported the women with quiet availability.
She prepared graduate papers for all who needed that help.
If someone needed a ride, she was there.
When conversation moved to literature, newspapers, she contributed. She knew the news of the world in the late ‘60s.
When someone needed help in cooking, she was there.
When I would stop in chapel at night, she was always there.
She was a a woman of the Church, of the world, and an outstanding Dominican contemplative.
Sister Ann Stephanie’s last teaching assignment was at Montini High school in Lombard, where she spent eleven years. When the convent was needed as an extension of the school, she moved into the nearest convent, Visitation Convent in Elmhurst. She wrote that in addition to teaching at Montini, she sometimes helped in the library, and that it seemed strange to be working in a room that had shortly before included her bedroom.
During several summers she had helped in the Provincial Office, a ministry that she had enjoyed. In 1985, at the end of her years at Montini, she applied to the Provincial Office in Hometown, and spent six years there as administrative assistant/executive secretary to Sisters Anastasia McNichols and Bernice Olszewski. When she left in 1991 she decided to retire, but remained at Our Lady of Loretto Convent in Hometown. When she celebrated her Golden Anniversary as a Dominican Sister, there was a writeup in the bulletin and a celebration for her.
Sister Lila Watt said:
I had the privilege of living with her at two different places. I learned over those years that she was an extraordinary English teacher. The other teachers marveled at her teaching of diagramming. Her students were superb.
I followed her as secretary to the Chapter Prioress when she retired… She liked to proofread my bulletins, and was so gracious about it. She loved plants, and took such good care of the African violets. I don’t have that kind of hand.
Although officially retired, Sister Ann Stephanie knew that she was still capable of a volunteer ministry. Some time before, she had begun recording books and articles for the blind, so she continued that ministry. She wrote,
As of now, I have spent almost one thousand hours recording everything from newspaper articles, cook books, travel brochures, to psychology, geography, medicine, sports, history, and one novel—a James Bond tale.
In Sister Ann Stephanie’s file is a copy of a newspaper article describing this ministry. Vivette Ravel Rifkin started it as a family project over forty years ago, recording books for her blind daughter. Soon other people asked for help, and the project mushroomed. In 2004, when the newspaper article appeared, the project had become an organization with headquarters in Chicago and many volunteers—fifty readers, twenty-five people helping to duplicate tapes, and others working in the gift shop and in the headquarters office. When Sister Ann Stephanie had finished twenty years of reading, the organization recognized her contribution and awarded her a pin.
In 1999 Sister Ann Stephanie returned to Adrian, where she lived in the Dominican Life Center/Maria. Sister Clare spoke of that time:
I accompanied her to Texas for her sister Marcella’s wake and funeral. Only then did I notice some memory loss starting in her. This increased since then, and most recently when I visited her, she didn’t respond. So her death came as a release from these burdens.
God took Sister Ann Stephanie to eternity on February 15, 2008.
A wake-remembrance service was held for her in St. Catherine Chapel on February 17. Sister Joan Sustersic, Prioress of Holy Rosary Mission Chapter, welcomed Sister Ann Stephanie’s family: her brother-in-law M. J. Waclawek, her nephew William C. Anderson, her niece Eileen Stancukas, and other relatives. She extended sympathy and summarized Sister Ann Stephanie’s life and ministry. She concluded by speaking of Sister’s last days.
Over the years her condition has declined. She lived in many places in the Dominican Life Center—3 South, Garden Community, 2 South. Last week she ceased eating and drinking, perhaps intuitively knowing that the One she loved was calling her home. Early on Friday, at the age of ninety-two and in the sixtieth year of her religious profession, God called Sister Ann Stephanie to Himself. She died as she had lived—peacefully and calmly.
Sister Ann Stephanie’s niece and god-daughter, Sharon Jean Robinette, read a letter that Sister Ann Stephanie had written her and that she has treasured ever since. In the letter, Sister Ann Stephanie wished her faith in God and her fellow humans; health and the ability to enjoy life as God intended; wealth of the spirit; beauty of body and soul; intelligence to enjoy music, books, poetry, beauty; wit; and happiness.
For the family, Bill Anderson, Sister’s nephew, spoke of his great affection for her and thanked those who had cared for her over the years.
Father Roland Calvert, OSFS, was the presider and homilist at Sister Ann Stephanie’s funeral liturgy on February 18. Father spoke of Sister Ann Stephanie’s appreciation of beauty and poetry; her maturity, wisdom, gentleness, and humility; her excellence as a teacher.
In her autobiography, Sister Ann Stepanie revealed that she did not find shared prayer as easy and enjoyable as her own spontaneous prayer. The sights and sounds of nature raised her heart and mind to God. On February 15 she met the God to Whom she had voiced all her thoughts and desires, the Creator of all beauty, face to face. There, in eternity, we can imagine her greeting the loved ones who preceded her and pouring out spontaneous love, thanksgiving, and worship to her God.