In Loving Memory...

Sister Mary Duane, CSC
(Violette Lucia Benvegnu)
Birth: August 29, 1917
Profession: February 2, 1940
Death: March 27, 2004

We have long known that grace builds on nature. This fact seems very evident in the life of Sister Mary Duane. Of Italian birth, she never slipped outside her heritage – except to adopt also another Latin life – that of the Spanish. It was in the melding of both that she found her special niche in Holy Cross.

She was born in Bingham Canyon, Utah, on August 29, 1917, to John Benvegnu and his wife, Lucia Scussel, an Italian immigrant couple from Bellano in northern Italy near the Austrian border. Never did she lose the Italian heritage. In these later years when people called her by her full name, Violetta Lucia Maria Teresa Papina Toni Benvegnu, she glowed and really came alive. When their mother died in 1918, the four children lived with their aunt and uncle, who were also from Italy. Through her sophomore year she attended the public schools, then finished her high school at Saint Mary of the Wasatch in Salt Lake City and continued for two years at the college. Then she applied for entrance into the novitiate, entered in June 1937 and received the habit on February 2, 1938. She asked for and received the name of Duane, for the well-loved and respected Bishop Duane Hunt of Salt Lake City. Her first vows were made in 1940 and final profession in 1943. Two years later she finished work for her degree from the Wasatch with a major in Spanish and a minor in history. She had found her niche – her life work. Or had she?

Her life with the Spanish language continued. A masters of arts degree from Western Reserve came in 1953, an N.D.E.A. grant from the University of Notre Dame in 1962 and two years later a Fulbright scholarship to Spain. She loved every bit of that time abroad, including a trip to reconnect more closely with her family in northern Italy.

For seven years after first vows she taught grade school in San Francisco, the Los Angeles area, and Woodland. She began teaching high school in Modesto and continued in other schools for several years, gaining her master’s degree during that time.

In the late 1960s when we became much more aware of the real needs of the time, those needs were crystallized for Mary Duane by a speech at a meeting of the Modern Language Association, as she wrote to Mother Olivette. The speech had pleaded with language teachers to help the Spanish-American people in the Southwest to teach a combination of English and Spanish. After much soul-searching she began that new type of her life work. In 1976 she retired from teaching – and went to Texas and The Valley, where she worked with Hispanic people in several parishes. Learning in 1981 that she had lupus, she returned to the West, to Fresno, to serve as a volunteer in the Diocesan Hispanic Apostolate Office where she worked with migrant workers, followed by other kinds of social work, including some tutoring. In 1995 the debilitation of her body had reached the point that she needed Saint Catherine’s and assisted living.

All her life people, especially her sisters, enjoyed her liveliness, her fun and her gifts outside the classroom. She cherished all things Italian, including wine at dinner. She must have been clever with her hands, for in Archives we have a picture of her working on a latch hook rug – there is no look of frustration on her face. A crossword puzzle devotee she remained almost to the day she died. It stayed with her through her days at Basil Moreau and even the weakening days in Saint Mary’s Convent. She kept in touch with students.

There is no East nor West in eternity, no Italy nor America, but the love we have felt for years cannot completely disappear. So, Mary Duane, enjoy your family and the comfort of being completely at home.

Written by Sister M. Campion, CSC

Memorial contributions may be made to the Sisters of the Holy Cross Ministry With the Poor Fund, Saint Mary’s, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556.