Sister Carol Marie Datz, SSND
February 6, 1935 – October 17, 2024
To the family of Leora Strauss and Charles Datz, a daughter to be named Carol Marie, was born on February 6, 1935; her brother Ramon had preceded her by just over a year. Carol wrote, many years later,
The Depression still had its effect on life; Dad was out of work for quite some time. I was born at home and the kind doctor told them to withhold any payment until their financial situation improved. He died shortly after canceling all debts. Mom very often recounted that story and I learned how a moment’s generosity is long appreciated.
Carol’s memories also included these--We moved to the country to live with my grandfather when I was four; they were wonderfully happy years with peaceful pastures, woodlands, and good neighbors, in a Methodist community. Mom and Dad’s hospitality and sensitivity won for us acceptance; our home became the community recreation center for adults and children. We raised chickens and sold the eggs to pay for our Catholic education at Holy Ghost School staffed by the School Sisters of Notre Dame. Since there were only three classrooms, Ray and I spent much of our elementary school days together.
The inspiration of her eighth-grade teacher, Sister Justin, her parents’ dedication to the Church, and the devotedness of all the Sisters, led Carol to the Notre Dame Aspiranture in Fort Lee, N.J. after graduation from Holy Ghost. “After graduation in 1953, she entered the Candidature in Baltimore, and after one year was received into the Novitiate as Mary Leora, “which pleased my mother so much.” A year after first profession on August 1, 1955, she had completed normal school training, and was assigned to St. John School in Watertown, Connecticut, for five years. Five in Saratoga Springs, New York, and six at Sts. Peter and Paul in Rochester, New York, followed. These 16 years became Sister Leora’s only exclusive classroom teaching ministry.
“My first great challenge came when Sts. Peter and Paul School closed.” For the first time in her life, after much soul searching, Carol spoke to the Provincial about her desire to remain in ministry there and found that the concept of superior dissolved into sharing responsibility. I was given the permission to stay as Director of Religious Education, and a whole new world of ministry and relationships opened up. The parish staff became connected with the Diocesan Office of Human Development and the Institute of Cultural Affairs in Chicago. She walked the journey with others in the RCIA, and it became one of the most rewarding parish experiences. She discovered the value of directed retreats and ongoing spiritual direction.
In the summer of 1980, our SSND Jubilee Program in Rome and Germany, “strengthened the bond we share as sisters in genuine family hospitality.” On a fortuitous trip to the Holy Land, the experience of being a pilgrim with other pilgrims at a Mass in St. Peter’s “on the feast of Peter and Paul made the marks of the Church stand out in bold reality—one, holy, catholic, universal.”
Inspired by these many experiences and the influence of Vatican II, Carol spent the next decades of her long ministerial life pioneering the roles of Director of Religious Education and Pastoral Associate, at St. Michael, Hartford. CT; St. Catherine of Siena, Ithaca, NY; Caledonia. NY; Immaculate Conception, Berwick, PA; Holy Family, Fairfield, CT; St. Patrick, Victor, NY; and as Diocesan Director of Evangelization, Adult Education, and RCIA in the Diocese of Springfield. MA. Carol deeply loved her ministry of inspiring renewal among lay groups in parishes and was personally deeply fulfilled by it. Her vision and that of Vatican II were one.
Around 2002 Carol attended an Icon Retreat at Enders Island in Mystic, CT. It was given by instructors from the Prosopon School of Iconography in New York. Here she learned how to pray with icons, an ancient practice that involves using both natural and supernatural eyes. Later she learned how to “write” icons and “wrote two — “St. Michael” and “Mother of Tenderness.” This is a very beautiful and famous icon that shows the mother of God nestled cheek to cheek with her infant son. To the Villa community, Carol explained the long and exacting process of copying an icon that she mastered.
In 2007, she came to Villa Notre Dame and over the next 14 years served in many capacities, among them driver/medical companion, sewing/mending, organizer of the Courtyard Gift Shop, and finally prayer and presence.
Carol during these years had time to develop her gift for watercolor, producing many lovely pictures, especially landscapes, most accompanied by her verses. She took part in many exhibits, both at the Villa and at Watermark, where her work was very popular with the residents. As a golden Jubilee gift, she painted for Carolyn Stoe “Mary of the World, Mary looking lovingly at the world.”” The cover of her funeral booklet is one of her paintings—a river landscape with the verse, “Of the kindness of the Lord, the Earth is full.”
Carol was buried on October 30 from St. Andrew Church in Bridgeport. Sister John Vianney Zullo led the Wake Service at which she introduced Carol’s nephew Charlie, his wife and daughter, and welcomed all the members of Carol’s family watching on live streaming. Msgr. William Scheyd presided, and the Homily was given by Father Martin Gomes, SS.CC., a friend of Carol. Sister Carolyn Stoe spoke of how she cherishes a golden jubilee painting, “Mary of the World” that Carol gave her. A Muslim woman named Golnar, who had come to the Villa to give acupuncture treatments, spoke of how her friendship with Carol had grown and was sealed by Carol’s gift of a painting.
Burial followed at St. Mary Cemetery, Bethel, CT.
Sister Kay O’Connell, SSND
