Sister Catherine, former St. John School principal, left powerful legacy

Sister Catherine Marie Gilmore, CSJ, (Sister Margaret Edward), who served as the principal of Saint John the Evangelist School in Canton from 1985 to 2001, passed away Sunday, December 9, at the Bethany Health Care Center in Framingham.

Sister Catherine was in her 68th year as a member of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Boston. Following her passing, her friends, family members, and former colleagues all agreed on one thing: that Sister Catherine’s smile and positive attitude were an inspiration to all who knew her.

Sister Catherine Gilmore

Sarah Flanagan Palmer, the music teacher and director of development at St. John’s, attended the school for two years in seventh and eighth grades. “She was always smiling and always happy,” Palmer said. “She greeted everyone as though they were her best friend.”

Palmer’s grandparents grew up in the same area in Boston as Sister Catherine, and Palmer had met her years before attending the school. Still, Sister Catherine managed to surprise Palmer one day during the summer after her sixth grade year at O’Donnell Middle School in Stoughton.

When the phone rang in the Flanagan home in Stoughton that day, Palmer answered it and heard Sister Catherine on the other end. She told Palmer that she wasn’t supposed to tell her, but Palmer was going to attend St. John’s in the fall. “I had no idea my parents were changing me,” Palmer said.

She was nervous about going to a new school, but Sister Catherine was very welcoming and down to earth, Palmer said. At the end of the first semester, the principal held informal individual conferences with each student in Palmer’s class and reviewed their report cards with them. “She was so encouraging,” Palmer said. “It was cool.”

Sister Catherine attended Mount Saint Joseph in Brighton for high school. After graduation, she entered the novitiate of the Sisters of Saint Joseph in Framingham. She went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from Regis College and a master’s degree from Cardinal Stritch College in Milwaukee. She returned to New England and taught at Immaculate Conception School in North Cambridge, St. Thomas School in Jamaica Plain, St. Ann School in Dorchester, St. Anthony School in Allston, and the Jackson School in Newton. She was a reading specialist at St. Joseph Clinic in Newton, principal of St. Matthew School in Dorchester, and assistant principal of Fontbonne Academy in Milton.

“She was a very happy person,” her sister, Peggy Meissner, said. Meissner, the younger of the two sisters, was 13 when Sister Catherine went into the convent. “She was always with the sisters,” she said. “After school she spent time with them. That’s where she discovered her vocation.”

Elaine Gilmore met her future sister-in-law at a party she attended with Sister Catherine’s brother, Edward, shortly before she entered the convent. “It was when I first started dating my husband — one of our first dates,” she said. Religious orders had strictly observed rules in those days, Gilmore said, noting that Sister Catherine did not attend the weddings of either Meissner nor Gilmore. Instead, they and their new spouses went to visit her in North Cambridge on their wedding days. Later they took their children to visit her on Sundays and holidays, spending time in her classroom where her nieces and nephews wrote on the chalkboard.

Over the years, the rules relaxed and Sister Catherine stopped wearing a floor-length habit and veil and began to dress in street clothing. Her considerable teaching experience led her to her career in Canton as a principal and brought her closer to her relatives.

“It was great for her family,” Gilmore said. “The whole family was here.”

Meissner spoke of the large number of community members she ran into who always shared kind words about her sister with her. And Sister Catherine’s brothers bought her a used car, which she christened Lazarus; it was always dying and coming back to life.

Meissner and Sister Catherine’s mother left Ireland at the age of 16 and traveled by herself to the United States. “We were raised to be strong,” Meissner said. “None of us were jellyfish.”

“She thought that women could do whatever they wanted to,” Gilmore said. “She was a strong woman, very strong in her convictions. I admired that way that she could negotiate being very strong spiritually and then have so much fun socializing.”

“She was a very charismatic person,” Meissner said. “She loved everything. She could do three events in a day.”

Gilmore agreed: “She loved doing what she was doing and the people she was doing it with. She related to everybody. Everybody loved her. I have never seen such a cohesive group as her teachers.”

Sister Catherine hired Ann Fay in 1996 to teach third grade at St. John’s. “I just loved her,” Fay said. “She’s that special. She was so authentic, she was so normal. What stands out in my mind and touches my heart is that her mission was to make school the best part of any child’s day. She just loved the kids so much. She was so encouraging.”

Kathy Kelly is a second grade teacher at St. John’s and worked with Sister Catherine for three years. “She was full of life,” Kelly said. “She loved to laugh. She was really just a joyous person. She wanted others to be happy. She was a real advocate for women.”

Sister Catherine (left) and Sister Francis Marilyn are pictured with Cardinal Sean O’Malley after the Mass celebrating St. John’s 150th anniversary in June 2011.

Kelly said Sister Catherine had great respect for the St. John’s faculty. “She told us what she expected [and] just really trusted that we would do it,” she said. “And we wanted to. You were doing what you were supposed to be doing.”

Kelly recalled that Sister Catherine started every faculty meeting by asking where they were going to eat afterward. She enjoyed spending time with the teachers outside of school.

Sister Francis Marilyn DeCoste, who has been a Sister of Saint Joseph for 65 years, is a dear friend of Sister Catherine and taught with her at assignments in Newton and Dorchester before working with her at St. John’s. “All that time her personality was just a wonderful personality,” Sister Francis Marilyn said. “She never changed. She never raised her voice. She just went up and looked at the children and they got in order.”

The two sisters lived in the same residence until Sister Catherine became ill and could not care for herself. Then Sister Francis visited her friend daily to help her. “I found myself coming over and doing what she needed,” she said, “writing for her, straightening her room. I enjoyed doing it, because she was such a wonderful person to work for. She was such an inspiration with her smile. She was always so upbeat.”

Meissner said that she spoke with her sister at least four times a day. “I always called her first thing in the morning and last thing at night,” she said, “and in between she’d call to see what I was doing.”

Sister Catherine passed away in the early morning hours on Sunday, December 9. Her fellow sisters from her former residence, some of whom were former classmates, lined the halls and sang Sante Joseph as her body was carried from her room. Six priests, who were friends of hers, concelebrated her funeral Mass.

“It spoke volumes,” Sister Francis Marilyn said. “It was the most beautiful Mass I’ve ever been to in my life,” Gilmore said.

Expressions of sympathy in Sister Catherine’s memory may be made to the Sisters of Saint Joseph, c/o Mission Advancement, 637 Cambridge St., Brighton, MA 02135.

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Posted by Mary Ann Price on Dec 28 2018. Filed under Features. Both comments and pings are currently closed.