PEGGY
Everyone should have a sister named “Peggy”.
Today – February 11th – would be her 82nd
birthday – but her deathday – got in the
way of that – November 5, 2013.
She was a sister – doubly.
She was our sister – Peggy – to Billy, Mary and myself.
She was Sister Saint Monica as an Immaculate Heart of
Mary nun – to so many sisters in that community of Sisters – centered in
Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Nuns in her community were allowed some where back there
– to go back to their original names.
Peggy stuck with Sister Saint Monica – maybe because she
got the nickname of “Saint” at times – and/or because she liked the name,
“Monica” – and she had a wonderful niece named Monica – the reason she picked
Monica for her nun’s name.
Who wouldn’t like the name Sister Saint Monica?
I’m sure if she had a name – in being a nun – like Sister
Mary Aligatious – she would have been back to Peggy on Day 1.
She was a servant – not just because Jesus calls us
Christians to be servants – not just because that was part pf the title of the
nun group she joined – but because it was her nature.
A servant ….
[Here's Sister St. Monica with her first class: 69 darlings as she called them in St. Mary of the Mount, Pittsburgh]
As a result, she ended up serving in many places in Pennsylvania: Williamsport, Pittsburgh, Dushore,
Sugar Notch, Scranton,. She was also in Manhasset, L.I. NY, Wilmington, Delaware,
Rocky Mount, North Carolina and Verona and Delran, New Jersey.
When stuck, when someone came down with a sickness, Peggy
was a piece on the chess board who could easily be moved.
She loved Rocky Mount. North Carolina. She got me – her brother the priest – to
preach a parish mission – in her parish for a week. I could see how much the
parish, the parents, and the kids in the school there loved her.
She loved her last job – getting old nuns in the Marywood
Scranton area – jobs as tutors for kids of all ages. It also got her a car that came with the job
– not a new one – but a decent car.
She liked Harvey’s Bristol Cream – a party – making Irish
Soda Bread – scale models of the tough strong bread with raisons and carraway
seeds.
Mary – was always my favorite sister – and I used to love
to say that to bust on Peggy – well Mary and I miss her this day.
We have to get up to her grave in Moscow, Pennsylvania,
not too far from Scranton – again soon – but not when there is snow on the
ground.
There’s more – this is just a little bit – about my
sister Peggy – a Saint - and such a neat
person.
Thought I give a little shout out for her today her
birthday.
Last night on Bull – Bull’s wife had a baby – and a
doctor – a heart surgeon – whom Bull and his team helped in a trial – showed up
at the hospital to thank Bull and see their new baby. The doctor kissed the baby and said something
like “The world is much better today –
because you are now on the planet.”
I felt that way about my sister Peggy.
I conclude with my opening comment: everyone should have a sister named “Peggy”.
