Sisters' Stories - Celebrating 185 years of ministry

In honor of our Foundation Day on October 24 we are sharing stories from and/or about our amazing SSND Sisters.

We invite you to help us continue to tell the stories of our Sisters this anniversary year by sharing a memory, a note about how a SSND has touched your life, or perhaps how you or your ministry are living the SSND charism. Reflections, essays and articles by and about sisters will now be featured weekly and will continue to be highlighted on our website as they come in. Please send us your submissions to comm@amssnd.org.

Blessed Are the Hands

Sister Clara Beall describes her art as an “accident - a stepping stone to my vocation as a teacher.”

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A Radical Love

The discernment of a call to religious life is distinct from other kinds of vocational discernment and requires an openness and prayerful listening to the will of God.

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Senior Sisters and Young Students Connect Across the Miles

Sisters Kenneth Marie Botta, 79, and Mary Frances Angermaier, 90, continue their teaching ministry from their home office at Villa Assumpta in Baltimore, using 21st century technology.

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A Refugee and Her Family Find Hope Via Esperanza Center and SSNDs

Blanca De Le O is now happily working for the School Sisters of Notre Dame at Villa Assumpta. However, this fulfilling career has been hard earned. Much of her life has been spent seeking safety and peace.

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How Nancy Pelosi's Baltimore Catholic Roots Shaped Her

From a very early age, my brothers and I were taught to be compassionate and to be aware of the world around us.

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The First SSND Missions in Saskatchewan

In the spring of this year, 1926, Mother Mary John Baptist Klein, and Mother Mary Isidore of Mankato, toured St. Joseph’s Colony in Saskatchewan, in order to study conditions in this prospective mission field.

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Providing Comfort and Connection as the End Draws Near

Sister Rose Mary Dougherty, SSND, 79, decided to make companioning the dying a focus when, years ago, she found herself sitting at the bedside of a dying priest who was a friend.

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The History of SSNDs in Western Maryland

Answering the need for Catholic education in Western Maryland, the School Sisters were invited by Monsignor Edward Wunder to take charge of elementary education at St. Patrick Parish in Cumberland.

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Our Lady of Good Counsel’s Historic Organ

In April 1975, one of the world’s largest pipe organs moved from St. Mary’s Church in Boston to the School Sisters of Notre Dame's Our Lady of Good Counsel in Mankato, Minnesota.