Mother Stephanie Mohun, O.P

346 Catholic Education/March 2006 MOTHER STEPHANIE MOHUN, O.P. RUTH CASPAR, O.P. ROSALIE GRAHAM, O.P. Dominican Sisters, St. Mary of the Springs It is often stated that Catholic schools in the US were built on the foundation of the poverty of vowed women religious. Dozens of communities fit this description, none more so than the Dominican Sisters of St. Mary of the Springs. Sister Stephanie Mohun’s service as mother general spanned a period of tremendous growth in Catholic education at every level. Seeing to the ongoing education and professional preparation of the sisters, Mother Stephanie founded colleges, staffed schools, established missions, and pro- vided leadership for Catholic education that continues to have an enduring legacy today. If prudence is the virtue most closely associated with cautious progress, Stephanie Mohun, O.P., was deficient. She was a courageous risk-taker; her 24-year tenure as leader of the Dominican Sisters of St. Mary of the Springs was marked by a succession of educational and missionary ventures that defied conventional wisdom. The defining quality of her own character was trust, an abiding trust in Divine Providence, a trust so great that caution and anxiety never prevented her from undertaking any endeavor which she believed was the will of God. Among these endeavors were significant con- tributions to the Catholic school system in the United States at every level: elementary, secondary, and higher education. THE MOHUN-DORSEY FAMILY tephanie Mohun was born Florence Lee Mohun on April 26, 1868, at Sthe family home, Woodreve, near Baltimore, Maryland. The third of seven children of Clare Hanson Dorsey and Richard Barry Mohun, “Lee,” as her family called her, came from an old Maryland family noted for patri- otism and literary talent. John Hanson, her maternal ancestor, was active in Revolutionary War politics, and in 1781, following the signing of the Articles of Confederation, was elected by the First Continental Congress as “the President of the United States in Congress Assembled” (Grant, 1996, Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiry and Practice, Vol. 9, No. 3, March 2006, 346-359 © 2006 Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiry and Practice Caspar & Graham/STEPHANIE MOHUN, O.P. 347 p. 230). Her grandmother, Anna Hanson Dorsey, was a prolific writer of the Civil War era, producing many light fiction works with Catholic themes. In 1889, the University of Notre Dame awarded her the Laetare Medal. This award, the oldest and most prestigious honor given to American Catholics, was established at Notre Dame in 1883 (Garvey, 2005). Anna Hanson Dorsey was the seventh recipient, and the second woman to be so honored (University of Notre Dame, 2005). Literary ability continued in the family line. Stephanie’s mother wrote for both secular and Catholic publications. As a young religious, Stephanie, under the pen name of “Lee,” composed Driftwood (Mohun, 1911), a vol- ume of 27 religious and inspirational verses. As the author explains in the Preface, these poems represented “fragments from a human heart, gathered – like driftwood – on the shores of human life, and sent forth to warm and cheer some other human heart” (p. 9). She also authored a children’s book, Claire Lorraine (1910). As mother general, her private correspondence and numerous letters to her congregation reveal a graceful, touching, and inti- mate prose style. EARLY LIFE The Mohun family moved to Washington, DC, in the year following Lee’s birth. Her childhood education was under the supervision of a governess, and at the age of 8, Lee, along with her two sisters, attended Madame Burr’s French School in Washington. In 1881, Lee’s parents, influenced no doubt by John Watterson, then Bishop of Columbus, Ohio, and a good family friend, sent her to St. Mary of the Springs Academy in Columbus, a board- ing school conducted by the Dominican Sisters (Rice, 1988). This academy had been located in Columbus since 1868, and had by that time gained a wide reputation for scholarship. The Sisters of St. Mary of the Springs are a daughter congregation of the Dominicans of St. Catharine’s, near Springfield, Kentucky, the first congregation of Dominican women in the United States. They came to Somerset in 1830 at the request of Cincinnati Bishop Edward Dominic Fenwick, O.P. The Dominican friars, members of the Order of Preachers founded by St. Dominic, were already established in Somerset, having founded a priory and parish in Perry County. The sisters were requested to start an academy there for the education of frontier girls. This enterprise flourished in Somerset until 1866, when a fire destroyed the convent and academy. After operating for 2 years in quarters furnished by the Dominican friars, the sisters moved to Columbus, Ohio, where a benefactor had offered them land to build anew their convent and academy (Mullay, 2005). Lee Mohun distinguished herself scholastically at St. Mary of the 348 Catholic Education/March 2006 Springs Academy. Archival records indicate that she won honors annually for public speaking and piano. After graduation, Lee, having made a prom- ise to her parents, deferred for a year her decision to enter the convent. Then, on July 2, 1888, she entered the novitiate of the Dominican Sisters of St. Mary of the Springs, pronouncing her final vows as Sister Stephanie on December 19, 1889. DOMINICAN SISTERS AND THE CATHOLIC SCHOOLS At the time of her entrance into the community in 1888, St. Mary of the Springs was one of the American congregations assisting the bishops in the fulfillment of the mandates from the Baltimore Councils regarding parochial schools. The Third Plenary Council of 1884 had decreed the absolute neces- sity of Catholic schools to serve the immigrant population. From their earliest years, the traditional ministry of the Sisters of St. Mary of the Springs had been teaching. Their earliest rule and constitutions adapted from Second Order congregations in Europe specified prayer and teaching as the special apostolate for the sisters of the order. Shortly after Stephanie’s entrance, work was begun on securing papal approval for new constitutions and con- firmation of the community as a pontifical congregation. These new constitutions, approved by Rome in 1903, stated: The primary object of the Congregation is its members’ sanctification….The secondary and special object is teaching; for since the Order of Saint Dominic was founded for the salvation of souls, all its members should tend to that end…the Sisters of the Order…should tend to that end not only by prayer, but also by such active works as breathe the spirit of the Order….In this spirit the Congregation embraces teaching as its special vocation. (Constitutions, 1904, p. 29) In 1889, the year of her profession as a vowed member of the community, in addition to their academy in Columbus, sisters from St. Mary of the Springs staffed several parochial schools in the newly created diocese of Columbus, Ohio, with missions in Somerset, Zanesville, Newark, Lancaster, and Steubenville. They had just accepted their first mission outside of Ohio: St. Vincent Ferrer parish in New York City. In 1891, the community elected as its prioress, Mother Vincentia Erskine, a woman noted for her commitment to Catholic education and to the professional development of her sisters. For the next 26 years, this extraor- dinary woman would lead the Sisters of St. Mary of the Springs. Some would refer to her as a second foundress (Gallagher, 1954). In 1893, having guided them through the successful process of obtaining pontifical status, Caspar & Graham/STEPHANIE MOHUN, O.P. 349 she was elected first mother general under the new constitutions. To this office she was re-elected in 1899, 1905, and 1911. Mother Vincentia missioned sisters to new schools in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Connecticut. In addition to her commitment to parochial schools, she established three additional academies: Dominican Academy in New York City (1897), St. Mary’s Academy in New Haven, Connecticut (1901), and Mary Immaculate School in Ossining, New York (1915). It was in these academies that Stephanie developed the qualities that would mark her as an inspiring educational leader for the Sisters of St. Mary of the Springs. EARLY FORMATIVE YEARS Stephanie’s first assignment was to her alma mater, the academy in Columbus, in which she served as a teacher and prefect. Here, at the age of 25, she suffered a painful accident. The students were presenting a series of illuminated tableaux when a spark ignited a pan of powder used for lighting effects. Stephanie grabbed the pan to prevent the fire from spreading to the stage curtains. The resulting injuries led to the amputation of her right fore- arm. In spite of what others might consider a handicap, Stephanie never became an invalid. She followed the advice of her mother, who told her: “Lee, you must live your life as though you had two hands” (C. Mohun, personal correspondence, 1893), and she fulfilled the prophecy of her grandmother: “You will do more with that one hand than most people can do with two” (A. Dorsey, personal correspondence, 1893). In 1897, after 2 years at St. Mary of the Springs Academy, Stephanie was sent as teacher and prefect to the newly established Dominican Academy in New York City. Six years later, she returned to teach at St. Mary of the Springs Academy for a period of 5 years. St. Mary’s Academy in New Haven, Connecticut, was Stephanie’s next place of ministry from 1908 to 1913. At that point, she was chosen as prioress of the Motherhouse community at St. Mary of the Springs; then in 1916, she was missioned as teacher and sub-prioress at Mary Immaculate School in Ossining, New York.

Load more