Honoring Therese

St. Therese of Lisieux, whose
feast day is Oct. 3, is usually
represented holding roses.

TODAY IS THE FEAST DAY of Therese of Lisieux, the saint known to millions as the Little Flower and one of the most popular saints of the 20th Century. Catholic Online describes her this way:

Therese died when she was 24, after having lived as cloistered Carmelite for less than ten years. She never went on missions, never founded a religious order, never performed great works. The only book of hers, published after her death, was an brief edited version of her journal called "Story of a Soul." ...  Within 28 years of her death, the public demand was so great that she was canonized.

Our shrine of St. Therese east of the Circle was first dedicated in 1946, built of local rock with a simple wood shelter by the groundskeepers. It was destroyed by fire in 1961 and rededicated in 1963 to the memory of a Mount student.

The original shrine to St. Therese,
at its dedication in 1946.

The Little Flower is immortalized in another way. Her tremendous fan base (as we'd call it today) was mirrored in the popularity of the name "Therese" among Catholics. Many Mount alumnae born in the early and middle 20th Century were named Therese or Terese (not to mention Teresa, after that other Carmelite mystic Teresa of Avila).

Among the Sisters on the faculty and staff of the Mount over the years, we count at least 13 Thereses -- Cecile Therese, Michele Therese, Catherine Therese, Miriam Therese, Eloise Therese, Daniel Therese, Therese Cecile, Therese, Marilyn Therese, Therese, Pauline Therese, David Therese, and Therese. (Surnames, in order, are: Beresford, Dumont, Knoop, Larkin, Mescall, Flynn, Pratt, Denham, Rudy, Donahue, Daries, McClean and Fassnacht.) That is quite a tribute!

St. Therese was canonized on May 17, 1925, just a few months before the Mount was founded. Perhaps that isn't just a coincidence. It's nice to think that the Mount has an important saint, one of just four women Doctors of the Church, remembering us in her prayers.

A familiar face

The original St. Joseph's shrine was on the western
edge of the Chalon Campus where the library is now.

THE COLLEGE IS NAMED for St. Mary, the Mother of God, but we have a second beloved patron in her husband and the Lord's foster father, St. Joseph. And while we usually refer to our founding Sisters in shorthand as "the CSJs," we shouldn't overlook the patronage of this great saint of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet.

Here are two small snapshots from the College Archives. The first shows the original shrine at Chalon, taken around the time it was christened St. Joseph's Park in the spring of 1937.

According to Sister Germaine's history 1925-1975, St. Joseph Park,

with its attractive wayside shrine, became the new devotional corner. This shrine. one of Mother Margaret Mary [Brady's] long-desired projects, was planted with a selection of rare trees and flowers, to make it valuable as a botanical garden also.

Funding for the shrine came from the Alumnae Association and other sources. The shelter was designed by Mother Margaret Mary, then president, with help from the Mount gardeners, and constructed of wood and locally quarried stone. It occupied an open space south of the College Building (now known as Brady Hall), where it stood for nearly a decade until it had to be moved to make way for the new library in 1946-1947.

Since then, St. Joseph's statue has occupied its honored spot in the Colonnade along the eastern edge of the Circle, a reminder that our patron still keeps his silent, loving vigil over the Mount community.

A student in bobby socks and saddle shoes pauses at St. Joseph's
shrine for a quick prayer between classes. Picture is dated 1961.

A statue, and a young life

Mr. & Mrs. Conrad Stewart (Mary Therese) with MSMC President
Sister Rebecca Doan, CSJ, at the dedication of the new statue May 27, 1963.

LIKE A CHILLY WIND, a sad bit of MSMC history blew through today. And it has a strange connection to contemporary culture.

Let's go back 50 years or so to the early 1960s.

Freshman Rosalind Stewart, front
row center, in the 1960 yearbook.

Rosalind Stewart entered Mount St. Mary's College in the fall of 1959 intending to study nursing. She appears in the 1960 yearbook in her freshman group picture, a pretty, smiling girl with a dark-haired updo. She wasn't long at MSMC; sometime in the next year or two she left the Mount to become a flight attendant, or "stewardess" as they were called then. Air travel was still the domain of the wealthy, and jobs on passenger flights were considered the height of glamor and adventure for women.

The next mention we have of Rosalind in the archives is this sad note from the front page of the college newspaper on March 13, 1962:

Notice of Rosalind's death
in the Mount newspaper.

The View staff joins with the student body in offering its sympathy to the family of Rosalind Stewart, former Mount student ('63) who was killed in a plane crash on March 1. … At the time of the plane crash she was completing her training as a stewardess, and would have been assigned to a regular flight.

The crash of American Airlines Flight 1 from New York to Los Angeles was, at the time, the worst air accident in U.S. history. A defect in the rudder control system put the Boeing 707 into a steep dive shortly after takeoff. It crashed in the marshes of Jamaica Bay and exploded into a ball of fire. Eighty-seven passengers and eight crew members were killed, including stewardess trainee Rosalind Stewart.

Although Rosalind was at the Mount only a short time, there is an enduring memorial to her just a few steps east of the Circle at Chalon. On May 27, 1963 – Mary's Day – a new statue of St. Thérèse of Lisieux was dedicated to her memory, donated by the Stewart family to replace the statue that had been destroyed in the Bel Air fire in November 1961, just a few months before Rosalind died.

And strangely, the plane crash endures in another kind of memorial. Not long ago an episode of the popular TV series "Mad Men" focused on the crash in "Flight 1." It explores the reaction at the Sterling Cooper agency to this national tragedy.

One look at the shrine of St. Thérèse is all you need, and you're there – a young life cut short, a national disaster, a grieving family. Next time you're near the Circle, visit St. Thérèse, take a look at the inscription and remember Rosalind.

In memory of Rosalind Stewart, Class of 1963, who, like St. Thérèse, loved the beauty of God's creation as revealed in flowers, trees and sky.  

Crash scene of Flight 1, March 1, 1962. Rosalind Stewart '63 was one of four
flight attendants who were killed in the disaster in Jamaica Bay, N.Y.