Sister Mary Adelaide Eiden, OP

Transcription

1 Sister Mary Adelaide Eiden, OP Even as a child, she loved playing school and being the teacher. She wanted to be like the Dominicans who taught her in school. This line from Sister Mary Adelaide s life story, written down in 2004 by Sister Jodie Screes, illustrates exactly why Sister Adelaide s entry into the Congregation came when she was just sixteen years old. Her sister Rita, two years older than she, entered along with her. Sister Adelaide was born October 11, 1918, in Detroit to Henry and Mary Agnes (Hickey) Eiden. Henry worked in the dead letter office at the Post Office, while Mary Agnes, who was affectionately referred to as Mae, took care of the home and the couple s four children. Besides Rita and Adelaide, there were James, the eldest, and Ann Dolores, the youngest. In her biography, Sister Adelaide remembered her father as an exceptionally peaceful man and her mother as a good, kind and very organized woman who handled the business affairs of the household. The family attended St. Theresa s, where the children were taught by the Adrian Dominicans in the parish school. When Adelaide was a junior, she asked her mother if she would care if Adelaide entered the convent at which point Rita added that she wished to do the same thing. Mae took the question to Henry, whose response was that the two were quite young but if this was what they wanted, it was all right with him. Sisters Adelaide and Rita came to Adrian together in June of 1935, and Sister Adelaide immediately began summer school in order to finish her high school credits. According to her biography, during their postulancy and novitiate she frequently told her older sister that she wanted to go home, whereupon Sister Rita would counsel, Let s stick it out for another month. A month would go by and the cycle would repeat itself, until finally the two made profession in January As a novice, Sister Adelaide was given the religious name Sister Marie Henry, honoring her father, while Sister Rita had become Sister Ann Dolores after their younger sister. Finally, Sister Adelaide was able to realize her childhood dream of becoming a teacher, and her first mission was at Queen of Angels in Chicago. It was the first of five consecutive assignments over the next fourteen years in Chicago or nearby: after that first experience, which lasted until June 1940, she was sent to St. Nicholas of Tolentine, St. Philip Neri, back to Queen of Angels, and then to St. Joseph in Homewood, Illinois. During these years, she earned her bachelor s degree in social studies from Siena Heights College (University) in 1943 and her master s in education from De Paul University in While she was at St. Philip Neri, her father had a heart attack while waiting for a bus, and died about three months later in February Mae had a stroke at that time, and died in April In 1951, Sister Adelaide switched from teaching elementary school to teaching older children for several years and returned to her home state in the process, teaching first at St. Paul High School in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, and then at St. Ambrose High School in Detroit.

2 Subsequent assignments took her to St. Ann High School in West Palm Beach, Florida; Presentation in Detroit, where she was both an elementary teacher and the principal; Dominican High School in Detroit; Rosary High School in Detroit as principal and superior; and Regina High School in Midland, Michigan, as a teacher. During her time at Rosary, she chaired one of the Committees for the Chapter of Renewal, and as such was part of the Central Committee. That brings her story to the year 1969, when she was elected a councilor and then, the next year, as co-provincial of Immaculate Conception Province, based in Detroit. When her term ended in 1973, she embarked on a whole new ministry reflective of the new opportunities made possible for Sisters after Renewal: hospital chaplaincy. She served at a busy Detroit hospital, Detroit General/Detroit Receiving, from 1973 to 1984 except for the three months she spent earning her Clinical Pastoral Education certification at Memorial Medical Center in Corpus Christi, Texas. In addition to giving a listening ear to patients and their families, she helped train lay people in the Archdiocese of Detroit as Health Care Lay Visitors. According to her biography: She described the environment as extremely busy with serious accidents and with victims of gun shootings. Her main work was to be with the parents or patient s relatives. She tried to be present to people when their hearts were breaking. She consulted the pastor of Our Lady of the Rosary Parish, Fr. Robert Morand, asking him what she should be doing with those experiencing grief and trauma. He said, You listen. It will come. Just don t interrupt them. Accept life as it presents itself; make no judgments. Sisters Adelaide and Rita both returned to their roots at St. Theresa s, and both became pastoral ministers there. The church closed in the late 1980s, but the school remained open, and a number of Adrian Dominican Sisters continued living in the convent until the school closed. When it did, Sisters Adelaide and Rita, along with Adrian Dominican Sisters Joan Baustian and Laverne Feeney and several Grand Rapids Dominicans, moved to Our Lady of the Rosary Parish, and continued their work. They were later joined by Sister Juanita Flores. Sisters Adelaide and Juanita worked directly with the poor and marginalized residents of the area, while the others worked for a variety of organizations. In an article for the June 1994 In Between, Sister Adelaide said, One of the delightful things is that people consider us a part of their lives because we ve known them so long. It s being in the city. Our presence means a lot. A woman once told us, I know you re there. Sisters Adelaide, Laverne, and Rita were honored in 1993 with a Spirit of Detroit Award for their commitment to improving city residents quality of life. They had been recommended for the award by St. Martin DePorres High School, which praised the women for their ministry in the city and for their support of the school s every endeavor. Because Sister Rita had died not long prior, Sister Adelaide accepted the award on her sister s behalf. In 1998, the Michigan-based peace and justice organization Groundwork for a Just World honored the same trio for their work in the area of anti-racism because of their thirty years work with the elderly poor in Detroit.

3 Even as Sister Adelaide continued her various ministries, however, she had begun suffering from macular degeneration, to the point that in 1994 she had gone to the Michigan Commission for the Blind Training Center in Kalamazoo, Michigan, for a month-long stay to learn how to remain independent. Finally, in January 2004 and suffering not only from her vision issues but also in the early stages of vascular dementia, she returned to Adrian to live at the Dominican Life Center. She died on December 29, 2017, at the age of ninety-nine and in the eighty-first year of her religious profession. Sister Adelaide wished to be remembered by the word gratitude, said Sister Nadine Sheehan, Vicaress of the Holy Rosary Vicariate, at the Vigil service held on New Year s Day God is good beyond one s comprehension, she continued, quoting from Adelaide s biography. I am thankful to God for the life God has given me and called me to. Reminiscences came at the Vigil from Sister Joan Baustian (read by Sister Rosemary Asaro) and from Sister Adelaide s cousin Peter Graham. Peter recalled many holidays spent together with both Sisters Adelaide and Rita, how he and his wife had moved in with Sisters Adelaide and Rita s brother and sister, Eddie and Dolores, to take care of them in their later years, and visits with Sister Adelaide after she came to Adrian. We had some really good times, Peter said. She s been a very loving woman, and I am proud to be her cousin. Sister Adelaide s funeral Mass the next day was presided over by Father Don Worthy, brother of her good friend Sister Dorothy Worthy. Sister Helen Sohn, who taught at Rosary High while Sister Adelaide was principal and superior and who served on the Provincial team with her, was the homilist. Adelaide s experience of goodness and love from her earliest days laid the foundation in her whole being to welcome and cherish God s love for her, Sister Helen said. She called upon God to steady her gait and put a smile on her face as she walked into new and challenging ministries. Her appointment to Rosary High School in Detroit as principal and superior, I believe, terrified her. But I also know that the news of her appointment sent waves of rejoicing through the three floors of Rosary High Convent. Adelaide brought a gentle strength, an unwavering trust in each member of the staff and a gentle, kind and loving presence to the entire Rosary School community. Sister Helen also recalled Sister Adelaide as serving on the Provincial team during a challenging time when change was in the air and interpretations of what that change was meant to be, or not to be, were freely expressed! Adelaide embraced change while also understanding those Sisters who were resistant. Thus, in her, we Sisters found a kind, open, listening heart. She, again, was where she didn t choose to be, but where she needed to be. Finally, Sister Helen recalled Sister Adelaide s ministry in Detroit, and said, without doubt, this valiant woman of goodness and love lived a life that mattered her joy, her kindness, her refusal to judge others, her gratitude for all that life offered. She asked only that we remember her as one filled with gratitude.

4 Left: From left, Sisters Rita Eiden, Adelaide Eiden, and Laverne Feeney during their ministry together at St. Theresa s, Detroit, October 1991 Left: Sisters Adelaide Eiden (left) and Rita Eiden participate in the entrance procession for the Tri-Chapter Golden Jubilee celebration at St. Anastasia Church in Troy, Michigan. Right: Sisters Rita Eiden (left) and Adelaide Eiden

5 Left: Sisters Adelaide Eiden (left) and Laverne Feeney each receive the Groundwork Discipleship Award for their work for racial justice from Groundwork for a Just World during a 1998 testimonial dinner on May 5, Right: Sister Adelaide with Sister Joan Baustian (left) Right: From left, Sisters Adelaide Eiden, Laverne Feeney, and Dorothy Worthy

6 Left: The Eiden sisters, from left, Adelaide, Dorothy, and Rita Members of the 1995 Diamond Jubilarian Class are: back row, from left, Sisters Mary Adelaide Eiden, Marie Carol Hurley, Mary Rita Gleason, and Catherine Ann Burke; middle row, from left, Sisters Clare Nicolai, Rita McDonough, Dorothy Burdett, Catherine Mann, Mary Roseen Maier, Ann Judith Provancher, Rita Joseph Haas, and Imelda Patrice Marx; front row, from left, Sisters Mary Marcella Gardner, Ann Carolyn Schmit, Georgina Marie Bowers, Marie Joyce Smith, Margaret Ellen Gordon, and Celine Marie McKay; and seated, from left, Sisters Rita James Waldron, Eileen Burke, and Jean Antoinette Briggs.