I was the second oldest of nine daughters of the late Peter and Josephine Thoenen. We lived on a farm in Frankenstein, Missouri, and attended St. Mary Parish and School, which was the center of our life and town.
We girls helped with all the work on the farm: milking the cows, driving the team of mules, putting up hay in the barn loft, and harvesting the grain. We raised almost all the food that was needed, so the summer was filled with canning and working in the garden.
Our family life was the usual Catholic life on a farm: Mass on Sunday, Perpetual Help Devotions on Tuesday, family rosary, and Stations of the Cross during Lent. Each summer we would be expected to walk to Mass once during the week to pray for blessings on the crops, usually prayers for rain. At night, my mom would call upstairs, asking the question, “Did you all say your prayers?”
On school days, we walked the mile or so through three neighboring farms to get to the school bus stop. We loved the sisters in school, and we had a very good education. Mom always made sure the priest and sisters got the best of the strawberries, always the best from the garden, and the best piece of meat at butchering time. But the absolute best part of it all was that we would receive beautiful holy cards from the sisters! We treasured these and kept a strict count of how many we each had.
I remember well that pre-dawn foggy morning on August 22, 1947, at age 14 when I boarded the train to come to the convent in Milwaukee. My mother tried to find a black suitcase for me because that is what the convent yellow slip said about the things one needed to have. She bought a burgundy suitcase (the only kind the store had) and painted it black so that it would be just as the slip said.
Before that, I had to go to the parish rectory to get my recommendation. Father asked what I would do in the convent and I told him, “I think I could be a house sister.” “No, I cannot write this,” he replied, so I said, “I think I could be a first-grade teacher.” Only then would he write my recommendation.
Once in Milwaukee, when Mother Corona asked what I would like to be, I dutifully said, “I would like to be a teacher.” “Oh, yes,” she said, “and I see you had piano lessons, and we need teacher organists.” So, with only three months of piano experience, I began with a distinct purpose of taking organ lessons and becoming a teacher-organist.
I finished St. Joseph High School and started Alverno College in the motherhouse. During this time, it was an organized life of prayer, study, being on time, practicing the organ and – because I knew how to sew – I was appointed to work in the senior sewing room. Many times I washed, ironed, and pleated Mother Corona’s habit. Yes, she did have that extra three-fourths English yards!
After one year at St. John School in Racine, I was sent to St. Albert School in Milwaukee to teach second grade. Because it was a brand-new school, all the students came from a public grade school. The pastor was an exceptionally good and holy man and well-liked by Mother Corona. I was told to do whatever he asked - even play Yankee Doodle if he asked.
I fondly remember our homemaker, Sister Antonie Mueller, who always encouraged me that I was doing a good job. Once, she gave me a medicine bottle of M&Ms as my first “pills” to take when I felt discouraged. She gifted me with self-confidence.
The community divided into provinces in 1963, and I moved into the Rockford province and to St. Walter School in Roselle. After two years, Mother Calestine appointed me principal with these words: “Sister, you are tall and have a good handshake! You will do just fine!” I used the handshake as a good indicator many times when hiring staff.
Shortly after, the pastor, a very quiet and good man, came to the office, sat down, and said, “Sister you run the school, and I will run the parish and when we need to talk, we will.” That was the beginning of the making of a great and well-known, first-rate school in the Joliet Diocese!
It was during this time that school boards were beginning and deployment of sisters began. I became Chair of the Catholic Diocesan Principals of DuPage County and started the Breakfast Club for principals. I was asked to be the spiritual guide for our Catholic Women’s group, and the parish and school were alive and well with Marriage Encounters, Cursillo groups, and good liturgies.
I remember during a Rockford Provincial Assembly, Sister Joelyn Hayes looked at me and said, “Sister Therese, I would like to hear what you think.” I will always be grateful to her, for she gave me my voice in community. Many years later, I remember Sister Cathy Ryan asking me to work on the 2010 Future Planning Committee. That invitation brought me into the larger community and helped me to grow.
In 1995, when nominated for the provincial leadership team. I felt concerned and felt mostly “What will be, will be!” These were incredibly special and blessed eight years, and I will always be grateful for those years as well as my eight years as personal service director at Sacred Heart!
In 2011, Sister Carol Rigali invited me to assist the secretaries in the U.S. Provincial office, and later to be liaison to the Associate Team. Now I also enjoy my chapel ministry at Sacred Heart, with Sister Jamine’s help.
I stand with a heart full of love and gratitude for my parents and family, for the sisters I have lived with in community, AND for all I have been CALLED to do and all I have RECEIVED from the community of School Sisters.