In Loving Memory...

Sister M. Gertrude Dolores, CSC
(Gertrude Mary Schwenk)
Birth: September 6, 1932
Profession: August 15, 1954
Death: March 3, 2005

Each of us mirrors the face of God somehow by the uniqueness of who we are and the gifts we have been given. The person “Gert” became was profoundly shaped by her beginnings and her early life in the rural community of Knox, Indiana, where she was born on September 6, 1932. Gert was clearly a farm girl – realistic, practical, responsible and hard working. She was the only daughter of Rudolph and Ethel Schwenk, with all those brothers whose names also began with a “G”: Garland, Gerald, Gilbert, Glen, George and Gene. All preceded her in death except for Gene.

Gert left rural Indiana in 1951 when she entered nursing at Holy Cross School of Nursing in South Bend, Indiana, and a year later entered the Congregation. She celebrated her golden jubilee this past summer, the 50th anniversary of her first profession in Holy Cross on August 15, 1954. It was a magnificent celebration both at Saint Mary’s and also in Plymouth later in the summer when family and friends gathered to honor her. As people congratulated and praised Gert in cards and messages, she quipped that most people didn’t get this kind of eulogizing until their funeral.

During her years of health care ministry Gert left a mark on both the people she worked with and the responsibilities she stewarded. She had high expectations for everyone, but most of all for herself. Hers was a faith that weathered over the long haul, and a love that expressed itself much more in action than in words. We saw the gospel she lived. Her faithfulness as a board member on several hospital boards over the years was another expression of her solid commitment and involved a lot of personal sacrifice. During these last 18 years at Saint Joseph’s Towers, she did everything conceivable – and sometimes beyond conceiving – for the residents. How many ice cream socials and trips to the Dollar stores and outings for lunch or trips to the Blue Chip she spearheaded.

Some of my best memories of Gert were times when Maura, she and I went on our little vacations together. We went to Lakeside or to her niece Debbie’s wonderful home on Lake Manitou near Warsaw. Gert would continue in her role of manager and activity director for the Towers as she took care of the two of us on vacation. She’d be up hours before we stirred, so that we had our morning coffee before our eyes were completely open. And then before we were totally conscious, she’d start listing all the possible activities we might do during the day.

During these last six months, Gert’s life changed drastically. She had surgery for cancer on our Congregational Feast, Our Lady of Sorrows, September 15. In the recovery room, she experienced a cardiac arrest. Later, she endured the stretch of radiation and chemo, not always sure she was going to make it through all this. For each of us life leads to a dark place that we cannot fix or control, the place where our deepest transformation happens, where the face of God becomes radiant. Gert could not fix or control much of anything during this last stretch. She who always gave to so many others, now needed to learn to receive. She, who had been so independent, now needed to depend on others. She did that very, very well.

Last Thursday, in the Emergency Room at Saint Joe Medical Center – the place she loved so well – with her niece, Laurie – symbolic of all the family she loved so well – and with Maura and me for Holy Cross, she died as she lived: straight-forward and simply. A few moments before her death, Gert looked up at a place where the wall joined the ceiling and stared as if in a trance. Her eyes were fixed, her expression peaceful. “What are you seeing, Gert?” we asked. And she just continued to look. Her eyes gazed steadily. After all these years of her mirroring the face of God to us, I can well imagine that God’s own glorious face was welcoming her home.

Excerpted from a memento by Sister Mary Ellen Vaughan, 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.