The end of an era is about to occur in the history of elementary schools in the city of Aurora.
Baby Boomers who attended Catholic schools as kids have vivid memories of their youth and of the religious sisters who were their teachers during that period. It was a different time for Aurora and countless other cities in the United States.
Each of Aurora’s 11 parishes included an elementary school, and many of the schools were bursting at the seams with kids in the 1950s and ’60s. Most of the parish campuses included a convent large enough to house the sisters who staffed the schools. There seemed to be an endless supply of teaching sisters, and kids rarely had a lay teacher along the way as they progressed.
The School Sisters of St. Francis and the Dominican Sisters were prominent among the different orders who served in Aurora’s schools and parishes.
During the last several decades, Catholic school enrollment has declined and many of the schools have closed or consolidated. Along with that trend, many of the convent buildings which once bustled with activity also closed. Ones that remained became home to fewer and fewer sisters.
It will be the end of an era as Sister Joan Korte and Sister Rita Mary Phalen plan to move in August from Our Lady of Good Counsel Convent in Aurora to a retirement center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They are the only sisters in town who live at and minister to an individual parish community. (There are two sisters from a different order who reside at St. Nicholas Parish and who minister to the Latino community as a whole in Aurora).
It also will mark the end of the School Sisters’ service to Aurora which began in 1884 when a group arrived to staff St. Nicholas School. The order also founded Madonna High School in 1926, and began serving Our Lady of Good Counsel School in 1925.
I visited with Sister Joan and Sister Rita Mary at their quiet convent (which will not be home to resident sisters for the first time in 99 years) to reminisce about their many decades of teaching and spiritual ministry. Although their vocations and ministries have been similar, Sister Joan probably has a record of sorts as she is finishing her 64th year of residence in and service to Our Lady of Good Counsel.
She was born in Highland, Illinois, and attended Catholic elementary school in Pierron. She then enrolled at St. Joseph High School and Convent in Milwaukee, graduated in three years, and spent two years in novitiate there.
The need was so great that Sister Joan was immediately then assigned to teach at an elementary school in Chicago (at age 19) and spent three years there. She and other young sisters continued their college education during the summer breaks. In the fall of 1960, she arrived in Aurora to teach at Our Lady of Good Counsel.
Sister Joan taught continuously for 43 years, mostly in second grade, until her retirement in 2003. She attended Northern Illinois University part-time, and earned a master’s degree in education in the 1970s. She also helped in many other ministries in the parish.
Those ministries have continued post-retirement, most notably tutoring students one-on-one and serving as the church sacristan. She also branched out and has served the community as a whole by volunteering at the Dominican Literacy Center, and also teaching English as a second language at Waubonsee Community College.
“I really enjoyed my teaching years here,” she said. “It was wonderful working with the faculty, and I especially enjoyed preparing kids for First Communion each year.”
Sister Rita Mary grew up in Lancaster, Wisconsin, and attended Catholic elementary school there. She then also enrolled at St. Joseph High School and Convent in Milwaukee, following the same progression as Sister Joan.
She arrived in Aurora (also at age 19) to teach at St. Therese School for four years, and also spent every summer furthering her education. Teaching assignments in Rockford and Granite City followed, but she also pursued and received a master’s degree in religious studies in 1976. This enabled her to change course within her ministry in Catholic education, and she became the director of Religious Education at a parish in Sycamore.
Sister Rita Mary moved to the Our Lady of Good Counsel Convent in 2001, and served as director of religious education at St. Nicholas and then St. Rita parishes in Aurora for a number of years until her retirement seven years ago.
She has helped with Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish ministries such as bringing Communion to the hospitals and parish homes, and has stayed very active as the on-call chaplain at Rush Copley Medical Center in Aurora.
“This position has enabled me to be a disciple of Jesus in ministering to the sick and to their families,” she said.
It was difficult for Sister Joan to give a short reflection on an amazing 64-year lifelong ministry to the Our Lady of Good Counse community.
“I am so grateful for being in community and living here at Our Lady of Good Counsel for most of my life,” she said with much emotion. “People were so supportive, wonderful and helpful. It’s just a joy to be here.”
Tom Strong is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
