LOOKING AHEAD TO C.S.J. APPRECIATION DAY next month, I helped a student find photographs of our CSJs from earlier decades. The pictures are in one of two folders, arranged by my predecessors: "Sisters in Traditional Habits" and "Sisters in Modified Habits." This one caught my eye because it has both.
The subject matter is also interesting -- two lights of the Mount. In the modified habit is Sister Cecilia Louise Moore, CSJ '53, and Sister Ignatia Cordis, CSJ, in the classic Sisters of St. Joseph model.
I figure the photo was taken around 1976 when Sister C.L., as she was known, was still president of the Mount. Sister Ignatia, who passed away in 1986 at the age of nearly 100, was a founding member of the Mount faculty in 1925 and the first chair of the art department. In spite of the modernization that was going on around her, and her reputation as an artist of the avant garde, Sister Ignatia was never photographed in anything but the traditional habit.
Sister C.L., a PhD in chemistry, is still remembered as a wonderful president and strikingly beautiful woman. She made local history as the first woman chancellor of the L.A. Archdiocese. In her photos, she is seldom smiling, but her we get the hint of a grin.