By Robert R. Schwarz
There she was, a nun who at age l6 had vowed obedience, chastity and poverty, now working in the oil fields as a research chemist. For the next 20 years, she'd be a co-worker among 1,400 employees, sometimes refining the language of men and, as one boss said, "showing but never telling" them how to live. Today, after her career in a company blue jump suit, followed by decades as an educator, Sr. Joanne Grib, lives out her vows as an active 76-year-old convent member of the Sisters of the Living Word in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Once pocketing her Rosary beads during trips to oil fields and steel and paper mills throughout America or Venezuela, you now see her holding them as she walks the St. James church grounds.
We met on a March day in an activity room of Sr. Joanne's convent. The morning sun was casting long shadows across the outside garden where convent’s 70 sisters come to meditate and stroll. As I arranged my note-taking materials, the room's conspicuous silence made me think of other close up conversations with nuns, of those privileged peeks into a dimension of life normally veiled from most of us. In that respect, this white-haired nun with the brown eyes and brisk walk was not to disappoint me.
I encouraged Sr. Joanne to reminisce, and she did, talking freely with a healthy respect for facts. In a self-effacing manner, she spoke with low, articulate tones, flashing an occasional grin over some memory that obviously humored her but which she chose to keep private. It was St. Patrick's Day, and I complimented her on her teal green slacks and sweater and her shamrock-shaped earrings. “I’m Polish and Czech,” she said, “far from Irish.” She saw me gaze at the glass Celtic cross hanging from her neck. "It's from Ireland, a gift from a friend."
We started at the very beginning. “I was born in Cook County Hospital,” she said, then quickly added: “In those days it was a reputable hospital.” Her father was a tool designer, who insisted that her mother remain a homemaker to care for their son and daughter. “I’ll take two jobs before you take one, “he promised. Both parents were "staunchly” Catholic. From youth her mother had wanted to be a nun. She died when Sr. Joanne was seven. Sr. Joanne's dad married his wife's sister, who gave birth to two girls.
Our nun grew up on the city’s South Side in the St. Gall parish. "I've been going to mass daily since I was knee-high to a grasshopper.”
In her high school senior year she took vows and entered the convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph and became a postulate, then spent two years as a novice in a convent in South Bend, Indiana. Next came a B.S. degree from DePaul University in Chicago, followed by a master's degree in chemistry from Kansas State University. “I wanted to be a pharmacist, “she said,” but the sister superior of my religious community said they needed a chemistry teacher. I didn't want to be a teacher, but in those days, it was ' no, sister, yes, sister.' "
After teaching chemistry for 25 years, Sr. Joanne served a three-year term as school principal. One day she expressed her desire to go into industry. She was given permission along with Sister Superior’s comment: “We certainly can use the money.” Whatever money Sr. Joanne would earn throughout the life would be given to her "community."
At Work in the Fields in a Blue Jump Suit
Except for a four-year break to teach at St. Ignatius College Preparatory school in Chicago, Sr. Joanne donned that blue jump suit for the fields and laboratories of the Nalco Chemical Company, and then headquartered in Chicago, now in Naperville. Did Nalco hesitate to hire a nun? "No. I went for an interview and they hired me on the spot. Then they sent me all over America, to Rome, even Venezuela. I worked in paper and steel mills, in oil refineries. I was instrumental in getting lap top computers for the salesmen and in setting up a computer chemistry program for them. "
I asked her what it was like working as a nun—the only one— among 1,400 employees and many of them men who likely saw her as a woman from a world they only knew from afar. “Well, everybody called me ‘Sister.’ They also called me, though not to my face, ‘Nalco's Blue Nun’ because I wore a blue jump suit when I worked in the fields. Blue Nun wine was popular at the time, and so when an occasional salesman took me home to eat dinner with his family, there was always a bottle of that wine on the table. But in the beginning, the men were uncomfortable in my presence—until they got to know me. I was very careful to let them know I was a nun. I did clean up some of their language.
I asked: "Any—well, how we can say it—'relational' problems?”
"One man was flirtatious and I had to tell him I was a nun.” The man explained, somewhat defensively, she related, that he was from the South and thought she was too and that in the South everyone calls a woman 'sister' in the intimate manner he had called her.
Asked if she ever help convert any Nalco employee, Sr. Joanne recalled that two workers approached her one day to tell her that they had returned to the Catholic church after a long absence because of her behavior as a "nice and caring" person.
"If there was gossip at the lunch table, I would get up and leave or change the subject," she continued. Another man still sends her a Christmas card along with a "good" donation to Sisters of the Living Word (S.L.W.) because she helped walk him through a divorce from a woman whom Sr. Joanne used to hear scream at her husband in his work cubicle.
In l992, Sr. Joanne transferred from Sisters of St. Joseph to her Arlington Heights convent, an order that began in l975 when 90 women of the Sisters of Charity (headquartered in Europe )" joined hearts and hands" to form S.L.W. In 2000, Sr. Joanne retired from Nalco with a "juicy pension”. She took it in one lump sum and gave it to her community of sisters.
A Typical Day…Lots of Praying
This nun’s typical day begins at five, sometimes five-thirty a.m., with a prayer, or the "morning office”, as the church calls it. It's followed by 20 or 30 minutes of meditation when she “just communicates with God.” Before breakfast she recites the Rosary. Then she might teach a computer class at the Arlington Heights Senior Center or help feed the homeless at the nearby "Journeys from Pads to Hope”, where she also applies her PC skills to client data intake. Bedtime is between 9 and 10 p.m., before which she prays the "evening office." There is always time for a "good” spiritual book (she is currently reading “The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything”). I should have known the answer to my question about her day off. "You never get a day off from God," she instructed me. Of course. The question of why she became a nun, however, caused Sr. Joanne to searchingly look out the window for a moment, as if neither she nor anyone else had ever really asked it. "Prayer, I guess, led to it,” she finally said. She paused again, recalling something from many years ago. “They always told me I got my vocation from my mother. She always wanted to be a nun but never could. I didn't know about this until after she died. And then, by an act of God, I entered the very same religious community she had wanted to enter. “Sr. Joanne's eyes became teary.
When we talked about her life challenges, the nun summed them up with three: remaining faithful, being patient with the senior citizens she teaches, and taking time for prayer—"you're tempted to neglect that sometimes and sleep in." She then admitted: "I guess I don't have any real challenges. Many times God seems a million miles away but you just keep working at it.” Sr. Joanne's eyes moistened.
What about spiritual warfare? With that, we shared a laugh. "Oh, yeah," she said, a bit leery about where we might go with this. “I pray constantly for wisdom and understanding and for a deeper spiritual life. I'd like to be able to pray better, get rid of those distractions. “She said she handles distractions during mass or a homily by resolving in that moment to "see what message here Jesus may have for me…During the offertory I offer myself up to the altar of God… At the consecration, I am very aware that Jesus is coming into that piece of bread and into that cup of wine. Many times I leave [the morning mass] with Jesus still dissolving on my tongue. I have a deep love for the Eucharist and a deep desire in my heart to be more Christ like."
Since her trip to the Holy Land last July (a gift from her best friend), the Holy Mother and the Rosary has become more alive for her, she affirmed. Now when she recites her Rosary, she sees in her mind's eye those Holy Land churches and other sites associated with the mother of Jesus.
At this point, one had to ask if things came easy for her. “I don’t know if they come easy. I make them easy. I'm free. God takes care of me. I don't have to worry where I'm going to get food or where I'm going to live." Her goal is to "spread the living Word of God." This she does by teaching a weekly Bible class and by speaking only positive, “life-giving words" to people.
Does this nun have any regrets about a lifestyle which, since childhood, has been one of frequent self-denial? Sr. Joanne sensed what I really wanted to ask. She became mellow, quite warm. " There's always been temptations like 'why not quit and get married …you could have children of your own'…I love children. But these temptations are fleeting. I know better. As you get older, it's not that big of a struggle. The life here isn't that austere."
She waxed some delight—and some relief—when we went to questions about her recreation. Yes, she does see a movie now and then (a James Bond or the recent "'Kings Speech”, which she found "fabulous ") and, on television, she watches "CSI”, “Jeopardy” and ABC News. She likes to read mysteries by women authors and loves Chinese food. She also mentioned the dice game “Farfell" which the sisters play.
Any big plans for the future? "Keep on keeping on," she said as we parted in the convent parking lot. “By the way," I shouted to her,” who’s your patron saint?"
"Joan of Arc!”
Naturally.
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