In Loving Memory...

Sister M. Laurus, CSC
(Theresa Slee)
Birth: October 7, 1930
Profession: August 15, 1951
Death: July 21, 2006

As many of you know, probably better than I do, there was never anybody quite like Sister Laurus. These last few days we have been lamenting the fact that she died comparatively young, but it only seems that way. She was born in October 1930, so she was 76 years old. Most people have finished their careers by that time, but she leaves us with a sense that a great deal was still at the beginning point.

Beyond that, she seems to be a storm of contradictions, perhaps because she was so much more living than most of us that we have no pattern to fit her into. She wanted to do so many things that many of them were started and never finished. She needed an army of followers to pick up on the things she didn’t have a chance to do herself, but people like her do not come in army-sized groups. She never seemed to know that – she never seemed to realize how unique she was.

Her first five missions, grade schools in Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin, covered 16 years, and the record gives only a couple of hints of anything different. One listing adds to the words “Elementary Education” the further words “…and retarded.” (A word we don’t see much any more.)

She was very creative in clay, and taught others to be so. She also seems to have taught music; it is said, although there is no written record of it, that her students won prizes in violin. She is said to have been highly creative in the production of drama – one sister says that her school plays “were like Cecil B. DeMille productions.” She also put her artistic talent to work with two or three other artists to paint paw prints on the sidewalks of the National Zoo in Washington.

Her last port of call was Baltimore, Maryland, where she taught art in a public high school and worked on a parish team. Her friend, Sister Matilda, left her peaceful (if, for her, dull) existence at Saint Mary’s and went to Baltimore with her. They formed a community of love and faith until Sister Matilda’s death in 1995.

To her superiors she was sometimes a problem. To those she worked with, she was often a godsend. To her friends and relatives she was a blazing comet, lighting our skies for a brief time. Not having been one of her superiors, it is not for me to say, “God send us more just like her.” But I am tempted.

Written by Sister M. Georgia, 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.