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Sister Maryland Anderson – Oral History
It is April 24, 2014, and I [S. Andrea Koverman] am here talking with Sister Maryland
Anderson [in Mother Margaret Hall where Maryland is recuperating].
Maryland: Maryland T. It is listed in the book.
Andrea: What is the T. for?
Maryland: Theresa
Andrea: Is that your given name or your religious name?
Maryland: Theresa is my confirmation name, after Theresa of the Little Flower.
Andrea: So it that Tere…
Maryland: Theresa
Andrea: You mentioned Dayton before. I grew up in Dayton.
Maryland: I lived there.
Andrea: What part?
Maryland: On Sherwood Drive, right behind Good Samaritan Hospital. In the Trotwood
area sort of.
Andrea: I was on the Bellbrook, Centerville line. I went to Incarnation in Centerville and
then Alter High School.
Maryland: Oh yeah, Alter. Centerville is a good shopping area.
Andrea: It has grown into a big shopping area.
Maryland: Yes, it has. I use the Greene (Town Center) now. It is very nice.
Andrea: I like to be outside.
Maryland: That is all I need. I don’t do a lot of shopping.
Andrea: Okay. To start with you can tell me anything you want to, whether I have a
question, if it doesn’t address it, whatever you feel like you want to include. We could
start with maybe you telling me what your life was like before you entered. What is your
family background and where are you from.
Maryland: I am from Florida, born close to Jacksonville. I grew up in St. Augustine. I
went to a girls’ academy there because it was during the war, and my parents traveled.
My dad was an engineer and they travelled, so they put us in that school. My parents
were not Catholic. In fact, my daddy did not like Catholics. He was Swedish, born in
Stockholm, and he was a Swedish engineer-trained. He thought that the Sisters were
the only people in the United States that could really educate people. So he overcame
his prejudice because he wanted me to have a good education. And I think he was very
right on that. So then I went to college. I got my bachelor’s degree at Florida State, my
master’s degree at Louisiana State, and my Ph.D. from Notre Dame. The Notre Dame.
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Andrea: The Notre Dame. And what are your degrees in?
Maryland: My bachelor’s degree is Fine Arts I think... No, actually Science. And let’s
see, my master’s degree is master of Science, and my Ph.D. is in anthropology and that
kind of stuff which I enjoy very much. I taught at Notre Dame, and I also taught at the
Mount. I came to the Community a little late in life because I had lived and worked a lot
before I came in. And then I met the Sisters of Charity at Notre Dame and became very
intrigued by what they had to…, what their dedication to the Lord and the work of the
Community was. And it spoke to me because they were not cloistered and shut away.
They worked in the real world, and that appealed to me a great deal. And so I became
very interested in them, and I had Sisters that added to that influence.
And then I went out West to work with the Sisters again, and I was at El Pomar which
was a retreat place we had there. It was lovely. And I worked there at a hospital, one we
owned. At that time we ran our hospitals. We had not divested. And so that sort of did it.
Along the way I decided, "Maybe I will do this." So I prayed a lot about it, thought about
it, and finally made up my mind. Well, I think they don’t accept people… I was near 50
when I did it, and I don’t think they take people of that age any more.
Andrea: Well, actually, that is about how old I am. Well, I just turned 50 on March 28th.
So I started pre-entrance when I was 44.
Maryland: Did you? Are you planning on entering?
Andrea: Yes, I am a Novice.
Maryland: Oh, I don’t think that registered with me.
Andrea: Oh I am sorry. Yes, I am a Novice.
Maryland: Well, congratulations.
Andrea: Thank you.
Maryland: Who is your Novice Director?
Andrea: Donna Steffen.
Maryland: I don’t know her very well, but I know who she is.
Andrea: We live in the back of St. Joseph Home. And there is another Novice, Tracy
Kemme.
Maryland: I have heard her name from someone.
We lived in Bayley Place when I was there. Betty Finn was our Novice Director, and we
lived in the back of Bayley.
Andrea: That is where we live. Which bedroom was yours?
Maryland: I think I was on the second floor. I don’t remember, but it was close to the
end. And we got into a lot of mischief. We gave Betty a little fit. Betty was… There was
an older Sister who is still with us, Sister…I know her name as well as I know my own. I

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just haven’t called it in a long time. She was the older Sister in the house, and she and
Betty were good friends.
Andrea: Annina Morgan?
Maryland: Yes, Annina. Betty used to tell Annina, "You keep out of the business of the
Novices. That is my job." So that was rather… I had a very short… I did my novitiate
very quickly. Well, I did almost a year. And then did one year… the next step, and then I
took my first vows. And I did my final vows very quickly too. Because by this time in life,
I knew what was going on. I wasn’t just a young person trying to decide about various
things. I have been very happy as a Sister of Charity. I found it very supportive and I
tried to be very true to our mission in what we do. And I do still, although I am retired
now. I still do help people with grants, but they have to be 501C3 which means they are
tax exempt. And I am working primarily with women and children who are poor and
dependent.
Andrea: That is great.
Maryland: And that is very challenging to me because writing grants is sort of like
hunting for Easter eggs. You kind of dig around and see what you can come up with. It
is getting harder as finances have tightened. Philanthropic money is not as available as
it used to be. But you can still get some. You really have to work at it. I am lucky in that I
have been doing it so long that my name is known to some of them that I go to. So they
know that if I am bringing them a request that it fits their guidelines and that I have come
to the right group of people. That is where a lot of people make their mistake. They go
to Foundations that don’t support what they are asking for. And there is nothing wrong
with their mission and what they want to do; they just go to the wrong source. So you
know that is just a learning process. I have taught some courses on grant writing.
Andrea: Oh, that is good. I did some of that as a teacher.
Maryland: Oh, did you?
Andrea: It was called 21st Century Grants, and we wrote that and got it.
Maryland: I have got copies of ones that I have written at home. I have books of them.
Andrea: That is great because then you can use them. So when you went to…,you said
you went to El Pomar to work. Were you a nurse or what were you doing?
Maryland: I really went there to work in a medical program. I worked with the National
Cancer Institute out of Washington, you know, the big National Cancer Institute of the
Institutes, and I set up a cancer program there…cancer information, and it is big now. It
has taken over the whole…that area of Colorado, and we did it with, as I say, with
federal money. We trained people to be knowledgeable in cancer, so that callers who
had been recently diagnosed or people who were just worried about it or wanted
knowledge about prevention.… These people were trained to answer questions. But we
had two oncologists that worked with us who were really the head of the program
medically, and when we had questions that required a doctor’s answer which we
avoided, when we did we would go to our cancer doctors, our oncologists. And one of
them that was my boss his name was Anderson too. And they thought we were
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married. Oh no. Paul Anderson was his name. So we built that program up and it
became very big and very important. So that is what kind of took me out West and tied
me there.
Andrea: Does it have a name…the Cancer Institute you started?
Maryland: It was Cancer Information Services of Colorado at that time. Now it is Cancer
Information Services of the Western Front, I think they call it. It covers all of that area.
So it just broadened and grew and grew. It was very challenging. We had Elisabeth
Kubler-Ross come and speak. And then I wanted to do some ads, and I knew a woman
who knew Ann B. Davis real well. Do you know who Ann B. Davis is?
Andrea: No.
Maryland: She played on that program the Brady Bunch. She was the maid.
Andrea: Flo…not Flo.
Maryland: Ann B. Davis was her name. But what was she on the program?
Andrea: I am trying to remember. I can’t think of it.
Maryland: She had been on two different TV programs. The earlier one she was a
little…kind of funny. Well, anyway, through this friend that got us together, I ended up…
At the time I had a little red pickup truck because I had a camper…I wasn’t in the
Community then, and I liked to camp a lot. So I went to pick her up in my truck, and we
just had the best ole time. And she came.We had her set up in a nice place to stay, and
we had a big luncheon and had her there. And people came to meet he,r and we did a
PSA, Public Service Ad, and she did… We set up a kitchen and got the cauliflower and
all of these nice beautiful vegetables, and when people realized we were going to do an
ad people give them to you. So we had a beautiful set up for her to work with when they
did the filming of the ad.
And then the Cancer Information Service at the federal level wanted to use it, but they
had a control over it, so it could only be used in our particular area of the country. Those
Hollywood people hang on to things. So that was a good experience. I enjoyed that very
much. People were very dedicated to that service. You know, cancer is something that
concerns us all. No doubt that we encouraged a lot of people to have checkups. And
you know I never realized the number of men…You don’t realize they need to do breast
exams until we had that program years ago, and I thought, you know guys are
supposed to do this too, and they don’t know it. Well, it is smaller in percentage certainly
than women, but it is just as bad.
Andrea: Yeah, they do have it.
Maryland: So that was a big part of my coming into…when I first came in…I taught at
Notre Dame, and I taught at the Mount as I said. I have been in academic missions
most of my life. I did do some time in the Navy and the Medical Service Corp.

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Andrea: Oh, you did? Well, can you start from when you grew up in Florida, and you
told me where you went to school, but when did you get out? Was the first place you
went El Pomar after?
Maryland: For the Community?
Andrea: No, like before you entered the Community what was your. . . ?
Maryland: El Pomar was not in my life at the time.
Andrea: I know you have already covered this quickly, but from high school you went
to…
Maryland: From high school I went to college.
Andrea: Yeah, but…
Maryland: I worked at different kinds of jobs that young people do. I got jobs to help
support me through my education. I was a soda jerk for a while. I think I was a
sophomore or freshman in high school, and we were right down the street from a
hospital. We had student nurses in there, and they are always broke, and I got fired for
giving away ice cream.
Andrea: Oh, no.
Maryland: I would give them two or three scoops of ice cream and only charge them for
one of two. That was the only time in my life that I ever got fired from my job. But I did
that kind of stuff out of high school, worked at different kinds of jobs and worked toward
going to school. My parents were not poor, but I was one of these people who wanted to
do it myself. My daddy said, "If you get through the first four years I will help you with
the rest of it." And I did the first four years in three years, and when he wanted to help
me I said, "I am going to do it myself." So I did.
He was, as I said, a Swede. He was an engineer at that time, and a lot of Swedes
migrated to America to become engineers, and we were working on things like Boulder
Dam and stuff like that. So it was a good haven for well-trained engineers, and he
came. And part of his time here was when the Depression was just starting out. I was
born in ’30 which was the beginning of the Depression, and he became a chef at a New
York restaurant, Luchalls [?], it was a famous restaurant, for a while because there was
no work for engineers. But he met my mom in Chicago, and they married, and then I
came along…
Andrea: And they ended up in Florida somehow.
Maryland. Yes. Well, my mother was from Terre Haute, Indiana, and they liked Florida.
They moved there, and then he had a big business after that.
Andrea: Do you have siblings?
Maryland: I have half brothers and a half sister. My mother was married to their father,
and he was a lawyer, and he was killed by a man that he sent to prison. He had him
sent to prison, and when he got out he shot him. So that was the end of that first
marriage, and then she met my father, and they married. So I had two half brothers and
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a half sister. The oldest half brother died in the war, and my other brother died some
years later of a heart attack. And my sister and I were very close, but she died about
five years ago. So that was the last of my… Now I have nieces and nephews and
grandnieces and grandnephews, and they are all in Florida, and we stay very much in
touch. They tell me I am insane to live in Ohio.
Andrea: I am sure because they are in Florida.
Maryland: They are right.
Andrea: Did you say you grew up in Fort Lauderdale?
Maryland: No. I grew up pretty much around Jacksonville.
Andrea: So are you a surfer girl…a beach girl?
Maryland: Oh yeah. But I am so light skinned, I had to really limit my exposure to the
sun. Thank God I did because in those days we didn’t realize how much melanoma
damage to the skin was permanent. But it hurt me too bad. I turned red and blistered. I
never tanned. I bet you tanned. You have got good color for it.
Andrea: Yeah. I lived in South Carolina for 22 years though.
Maryland: What part?
Andrea: Beaufort. It is the same county as Hilton Head.
Maryland: Oh yeah. I know where Hilton Head is.
Andrea: Everyone knows that. So it is the southern tip. About 40 minutes from the
Georgia border. Yes. I stay a little bit yellow now. I don’t get tan.
Maryland: You know, I like to go down to that part of the country during peach season.
People up here don’t know what a good peach is…or what good seafood is.
Andrea: Oh I know. I was going to say the shrimp. I miss the shrimp so bad, and the
crab.
Maryland: This friend of mine…we grew up together, we were sort of like sisters. We
are a select family rather than a born family. And every time she comes up to visit me,
she brings me a big mess of shrimp. You know, ninety-five cents, a dollar, a dollar-anda-half pound of jumbos. And I figure, I told her you pay $15 a pound for these little
doodads.
Andrea: So from college did you enter the Navy?
Maryland: Yeah, I went in the Navy when I got out of College, and I enjoyed that very
much. It was a good experience. There were some things about it that were bad
because I saw little kids that got shot and hurt. In the hospital ship you take in a lot of
people. Even though we were a big white hospital ship with a big red cross on it they
would still drop bombs at the end of the ship. And it was clearly marked a hospital. You
know a big white ship with a red cross on it is not hard to miss. So we had some of that.

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We had a crew of about 840, and we had major operating rooms and all of that. It was
just a hospital floating, treating people that needed it.
Andrea: What did you do on the hospital ship?
Maryland: Really for that particular business, I was trained by the Navy for it, I was a
med tech. A medical technologist. I would cross type and cross match blood and do
blood counts and stuff like that. But I went through what they call a hospital core school
in the Navy. And if we were in Dayton I could show you… Oh, you don’t need to see all
of that … It shows you how you graduated from this to this to this, and I worked my way
up till I got to go to Washington and do…which at that time was very high on guard…a
training in a bone and eye bank because at that time was really just getting started. So
that was interesting to me. Just to collapse all of that that was a part of my experience
as I went through.
Andrea: What made you join the Navy? The war?
Maryland: Well, my family. My brothers and everybody were in the service, and I just felt
like I owed my country a debt.
Andrea: That is unusual for a woman to feel that way at that time.
Maryland: I knew some women that felt that same way. And then I got a commission
which made my life very pleasant. I became a lieutenant commander. But it was…I met
nice people. There was none of this harassment that people talk about. That must be
the later military for women because in those days if you got a little scrambled egg on
your pot, and anybody messes with you, they are dead meat. But I never met any men
that were disrespectful. I did date a guy when I was in the Navy that I liked a lot. Bill
Einsford was his name. You know it was just a good part of my life. I enjoyed it.
Andrea: That was a different time. People treated people differently.
Maryland: I think women at that time perhaps went in it for a different set of motives. I
don’t know that that is true. I never researched it in theory code. I think some of the
younger people now maybe they are husband hunting, or career hunting. Or just looking
for a place to anchor.
Andrea: That might be their only opportunity. A lot of them.
Maryland: And maybe it is their path to more education. I don’t think nowadays they
have the GI Bill. I did. I had some GI Bill benefits. That is what I used at Notre Dame.
For every month you are in, you got so much money when you went to college.
Andrea: I think they still do that. Because I know that is the reason a lot of people enter.
Maryland: Good because young people deserve it. This business now is a whole lot
different now. I hate to see our young people going to Afghanistan. I want to get them
out of there.
Andrea: So how long were you in the Navy?
Maryland: About five years, and I stayed in the reserves. And I was finishing my
master's degree, and one of the scrimmages came along, and I forget now what it even
was, but I got this notice that they were going to put me back on active duty. ”Dear God,
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if you just let me get out of this, I will get out of the Navy altogether." And I did. I got out.
I didn’t want to interrupt my education at that point. So I made it through and got out.
Andrea: Do you remember what year that was?
Maryland: Was that Korea? It could have been because I was in part of Korea. What
scrimmage came before Korea? There was so many of those little ones. I don’t
remember.
Andrea: Well, that is okay. So you got out of the Navy and finished up your master's
degree?
Maryland: Yes I finished my master's and my Ph.D.
Andrea: Oh, you went right through?
Maryland: No. I took time off in between each degree to make money. I got a
scholarship for most all of my colleges, so I was not building up a lot of debt which
helped. And then when I got my Ph.D. I had three very good offers for total
scholarships. And although I am a Catholic at that time, I had never attended a Catholic
college. So when Notre Dame offered me a good deal, and they did, I went to Notre
Dame because I loved Notre Dame, Number One.
Andrea: That would be hard to turn down, a scholarship to Notre Dame.
Maryland: It sure turned me on to football. In football season people know not to call me
when Notre Dame is playing.
Andrea: That is fun, a fun school to cheer for. It has lots of fans outside of its own
alumni even.
Maryland: Yeah, the underground alumni of Notre Dame which are people who have
never gone to Notre Dame, but they are dedicated fans. And what’s his name was there
the year I was…while I was there. Rudy. I did not know him, but he was there when I
was there because I was there…I think I was teaching in 1975. But then he went, and
five of his brothers followed pursuit. And he worked very hard to survive at Notre Dame.
They started him off in a little community college across the road to see if he could build
up his grades. That was an interesting story. I knew Father Hesburgh which was a big
honor. He is quite a man. Very charismatic.
Andrea: I don’t know who that is.
Maryland: Hesburgh. He is the most famous president of Notre Dame that ever existed.
And he became very important in world peace and in big committees that controlled the
city that was about important political issues. Hesburgh was one of our big, big
leaders…religious leaders. But he was respected as a politician and a leader, not just
as a Catholic priest or a priest of any kind. So my degree has his name on it which I am
honored to have.
Andrea: So after you got your Master’s or your Ph.D. where did you head?
Maryland: I did mostly teaching after that.

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Andrea: At Notre Dame?
Maryland: Yeah, I taught at…Well, I left Notre Dame for a while because they are not
inclined to inbreed. If you graduated from there, they want you to go away for a while
and get seasoned. Well I did. I went to… Well, let’s see, where did I go? I can’t
remember now. But wherever I was, a friend of mine committed suicide. And the guy
that was the head of the department, Andy Wreikiert, who was a friend of mine, called
me and asked me if it would be possible for me to come and pick up where he left off.
They wanted somebody who could work with the students who could face it. His suicide
blew my mind. Well anyway, I did go back, and I taught, and I ended up that time
staying there for quite a while.
In the meantime I am getting involved with the Sisters of Charity at Notre Dame, and so
I kept getting deeper into that. And there was a Sister, I doubt that you know her, that I
ended up working with. We were actually a team, employed at Notre Dame…Sister
Maria Garlock. And she was the head of the graduate women’s living quarters…rooms
and so on. It was a little place that had little apartments and little houses. And so she
hired me to be her assistant which helped me because I was going through getting my
degree. So that helped me, and that is how I began to get involved with the Charities.
Andrea: So she was the one that kind of brought you…
Maryland: She was a walking saint if there ever was one. I never in my life heard one
word against her. And that is unusual, especially with catty women religious groups. But
Maria was just a fabulous human being. Unfortunately, she died of Alzheimer’s. And it
runs in her family. She had another sister who had it, two brothers.
Andrea: Wow. That is too bad. So were you about the same age?
Maryland: Yeah, I think Maria was about four or five years older than me…three or four
or something like that, but I became very close with her family, and her nephew and I
are still good friends. He comes to my house. He works for Channel 9 in Dayton. He will
come sometimes when he is on that side of town doing a story and park that big van out
there, and my neighbors would call and say what is going on with Channel 9?
I have nice neighbors in Dayton. We have a sort of a little community there. There are
Sisters in the houses all along—[Sherwood Drive],…and they are little houses. You
would be hard pressed to live with-- You might get by with two if you are good friends.
But you couldn’t get beyond that because they are just little houses. And they like to
rent to the Sisters because we pay our rent, and we take care of the property. So we
have what we call the Sherwood Community, Sherwood Drive Community. And it is just
about… Let’s see…Donna [Collins] is a Sister of Charity, then my real close friends,
Sister Dee, Fritz and Phyllis. They are a different community, but they are very special
people to us. And then there is me, and there is a nifty house that the squirrels live in.
This doctor, well, he owns, and he won’t rent it, but the squirrels live in it. They don’t
bother me. And then there is another Sister. I doubt that you would know her name or I
would call it…Corrine Schmidt, you don’t know her do you? Terry Dery…
Andrea: I do know that name.
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Maryland: Terry is a [Dayton] councilor, so you might know her. Terry Dery and. . .
Andrea: Is that where Katie Hoelscher and Fran [Flynn]. . . ?
Maryland: Yes. Katie. Isn’t she here right now getting therapy?
Andrea: Yes, she has moved here. She is on the Third Floor Respite.
Maryland: I see her every now and then when I come for physical therapy. Katie is an
absolutely wonderful lady.
Andrea: Yeah, I love Katie:
Maryland: It grieves me that… You know she broke those legs a long time ago.
Andrea: I didn’t realize that she had done that. She just had a back surgery procedure,
and she is doing something else.
Maryland: She fell and broke both of those legs years ago, and that was the beginning
of problems for her. But she is… I just have the deepest respect and liking for her.
Andrea: She was the principal at Alter.
Maryland: Oh yeah, she was, wasn’t she? Let’s see…you knew Fran Flynn then. I was
grieved at her death. She suffered some though before.
Andrea: Yeah, a long time. That was so sad.
Maryland: She was a gift to the Community. All and all, I think we have a pretty
marvelous group of women.
Andrea: I am certainly impressed with the more I learn and the more Sisters I get to
know. It is amazing.
Maryland: Yes, the kindness and the caring. They are genuinely women of God.
Andrea: They really are. The service that this group of women has done from the
beginning is just amazing.
Maryland: I am glad your experience with the Charities has been so good too.
Andrea: Well I have relatives that I...
Maryland: …that are in the Community?
Andrea: Kateri Koverman is my second cousin.
Maryland: Kateri is a buddy of mine.
Andrea: Is she?
Maryland: Yeah.
Andrea: She is my second cousin. And Sister Mary Joseph…she died in
2010…Koverman…she was a teacher.
Maryland: I might need to see her face to remember her.

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Andrea: Then I had two great aunts…when I was a little girl...Mary Walburga and Mary
Naomi.
Maryland: No, I knew Mary Naomi’s name. Well, how did we miss you?
Andrea: Well, here I am now. Better late than never.
Maryland: Well, you are not late.
Andrea: No, I don’t think so comparatively speaking.
Maryland: In the old days they used to call it a delayed vocation. I called it a little later
call from the Lord.
Andrea: That is a good way to say it. I would say I am a late bloomer. I took the long
way home.
Maryland: The Lord just waited a while to give me a full call, but he has been telling me
all along, "Come on, come on."
Andrea: I had some other things to do first I guess.
Maryland: You know. I really kind of felt that way. I didn’t want to do it. I said, "Not me,
Lord. I am not for that kind of life," you know, and I just went on for a few years and was
pulled back and forth, and finally, whatever you want to call it, an opening or something,
I just thought I have to do this. I can’t fight it any longer.
Andrea: Yeah, that is kind of how I felt. And, you know, you try to figure it out, but you
are not going to know until you try. And I finally said, "I will go try," and you just keep
moving along.
Maryland: And if you start sounding like "Oh, I have been called," people think you are a
nut of some sort. But the call is in the heart, in here.
Andrea: Yeah, and it is not a voice.
Maryland: No. It is just, like what you said. This is what you do. And it is not a big
awakening or trumpets don’t play.
Andrea: Right. I noticed, and I can’t remember who I was talking to, but I said something
about when I enter instead of if I enter. And someone said, "Did you hear what you just
said?" Like part of me had already decided.
Maryland: The decision was there. The Lord has an interesting way of giving us his
messages. I found out it is all right to be mad at God. He can handle it. And I say when
you get really mad you want to tell the Lord. Tell him you are fed up with this.
Andrea: Yeah. There is plenty of reason to get angry in this world.
Maryland: And the Lord can handle , so take it to him.
Andrea: Right. Okay. So your friend Sister Maria Garlock introduced you to the
Community.

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Maryland: Well, when I ended up being her assistant director of the women’s housing,
then that is when I met… Maria introduced me to people I doubt you know, John Miriam
Jones. You know her?
Andrea: Oh yeah.
Maryland: Then the one out West. The other Sister.
Andrea: Is she still out there?
Maryland: Yes. She lives with Gasdorf. I need my directory. That’s what I need to keep
my mind…
Andrea: The little blue one?
Maryland: Yeah, that one. I have been out of touch with these people so long I don’t
recall their name. Now Annina you know. Annina is a good friend of mine.
Andrea: Annina is a wonderful person.
Maryland: Annina is going to outlive God.
Andrea: Isn’t she amazing?
Maryland: She is amazing. And she is no dull gal either.
Andrea: Oh my gosh, she doesn’t forget anything. She is amazing.
Maryland: Here is Kateri. Kateri Maureen Koverman. She is in 319 here. Did you know
that?
Andrea: Yeah. I am on the page in front. I was looking to see if my name was on there,
and I am right there.
Maryland: Oh, okay. Let me see your pen. So you actually have the Koverman name.
Andrea: Yes.
Maryland: You know Kateri did some wonderful things.
Andrea: Yes, she is inspirational.
Maryland: Isn’t she the one that did the [Vietnam baby] airlift? I mean, that is historical.
You know the last time I saw her though, which has been maybe three years, I was a
little worried about her. She didn’t look so good.
Andrea: She had just had a stroke.
Maryland: Yes, she did. She had that stroke. Is she holding her own?
Andrea: Well, she actually just had another one about four or five months ago. But she
moved her Them Bones Veteran Community in the Motherhouse now, so she is starting
to get back into it. So she is doing okay.
Maryland: She has done such wonderful things you know. I hate to hear that she is
having… Well, that is part of getting old you know, just keep crashing and crashing.

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Andrea: I am trying to think of the other Sisters I know from the West. Linda Chavez is
one.
Maryland: Yeah. I know Linda very well. This Sister's name…she was regional for…she
was head of the Community when I was out West and decided to join the Sisters of
Charity. She was the one I went to talk about it with. And I just love her dearly. She
steps back from…she doesn’t want to be in the limelight… Jane Grosheider and this
other friend of Grosheider’s. She is not a person I am terribly crazy about, the other one,
so I don’t remember her name.
Andrea: Okay. So you had to leave Notre Dame to become a Novice?
Maryland: Yeah, that is when I got all turned on to it. Really, it just came like taking a
breath. You know it was just that easy and natural to me.
Andrea: That is really nice.
Maryland: And it was you know…because when I came in I was pretty well off
financially. And Betty Finn and Annina used to say to me, "Well, how is it going to feel
not to have any money?" And I said, "Well, I think I will make it." So they made me the
treasurer and shopper of Bayley, and I had to do…we all had a stint at it. But I did it,
and they said, "Now you know you are used to having all the money you want to have
and everything," but by the end of the month they were begging for treats. I said, "That
doesn’t go in the budget," and Betty said, "You could be a little looser Andy." Then she
said, "You know, when I was going in and I was used to having money and everything,"
and I said, "Betty, I had money because I kept a hand on it."
Andrea: Yeah right. Not because you spent everything.
Maryland: So that was kind of a funny story. But that is really the sum and substance of
my story.
Andrea: That sums up your story?
Maryland: Yeah. I think that tells my story. What more is there to say? How much can
you talk about yourself?
Andrea: I know it is hard to talk about yourself. Well, if you can’t think of anything else
you would like to add. . .
Maryland: I am just an ordinary old Sister of Charity. I never wanted leadership in the
Community. I never put myself in position to be running for it. If people asked me, I
would say no because by that time I just didn’t want that. I just wanted to be me. I had
enough leadership in my younger life that I didn’t have any ambitions to run the world.
Andrea: Yeah, that is true. You did.
Maryland: Although I admire the women who have been doing that for us. We have had
some noble leaders, some great leaders.
Andrea: Well, did you go back into teaching after you became a Sister of Charity?
Maryland: Yeah. I did. I taught over at our College for several years, and then I got out
of that teaching and opened up an office of grant resources for the Community to see if
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we could get some Sisters to go through it, and we could get them some grants, and it
really didn’t work out very well. For one thing they kind of…they didn’t really know what
to do with it.
Andrea: I think they have probably gotten better at that now or some of them, some of
the agencies.
Maryland: I mean they didn’t know what to do with an offer for help. You know, they
were just used to doing it on their own. And in those days they weren’t doing all that
good, but they are now. I mean they are much better at it. They got more sophisticated
with it. As your needs…like the Seton Family Center, I started out helping her, and she
appreciated the help. But she built that thing on her own efforts. And we have a lot of
Sisters that have done that, you know. They are gusty ladies, and they get out there,
and they want to do something, and they do it.
Andrea: Yeah, it is great. How did you end up in Dayton?
Maryland: How did I end up in Dayton? Oh, I was teaching at the Mount, and Sister
Maria and I shared one of the Community apartments on Rapid Run, and we were both
at the College. When Sister Maria… Jean Patrice [Harrington] called Sister Maria and
asked her to come from the West and work at the College, and Maria said okay she
would. We talked about it, and I said, "Okay if that is what is going to be a good ministry
for you, take it." And then about a week later after Maria said she would.
Jean Patrice called me and asked me if I would teach at the Mount. So I went to the
Mount when Maria did, and we lived in that… It was the first apartment building the
Community ever bought. Maryanna Coyle and I went looking together. And we took one
of those apartments in one of the buildings, and we lived there and taught at the College
for a good while. And then Maria was asked to go to Dayton, and not long after that I
was invited to Dayton, and so we got a house that the [Good Samaritan] Hospital owned
and lived in it.
Andrea: You got invited to Dayton to do what?
Maryland: Just to…what did I do? I had another job. It wasn’t in the Community. God, I
don’t remember. It was starting some program for something…the Hubert Foundation. I
was doing some work with the Hubert Foundation. Joann, Hubert’s wife, is [not] a comember of our Community. Ed Hubert . . .; she is a very…she graduated from the
Mount, and she was a student of mine and a lovely lady; he is very rich, so he can move
in and out of circles. I have gotten money out of him for programs.
Andrea: Well, that is good.
Maryland: Yeah. Never look a gift horse in the mouth.
Andrea: So you have been in Dayton ever since?
Maryland: Pretty much so. I like Dayton very much. I don’t like Cincinnati.
Andrea: Really? Why not?
Maryland: I just never have liked Cincinnati. It is a big dirty city to me. East hates West,
and they have got all of this politics going on. Get over it, honey.
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Andrea: Yeah. It took me a long time to figure out what people were even talking about
the East and West.
Maryland: Yeah, and you know Delhi kind of died. I taught at the College, and I lived
right up the hill from the College at those apartments on…they kind of sit back…let me
see who lives there.
Andrea: Not the Rapid Run ones?
Maryland: Yeah. Up off of Rapid Run [Anderson Ferry].Ruth and Victoria live there.
Andrea: And I think Joyce Richter.
Maryland: Does Joyce live there? She could.
Andrea: The Rapid Run apartments?
Maryland: I lived there a couple of times really as I came in and out, but Ruth and
Victoria moved about a year-and-a-half ago to get a lower apartment. Ruth has a little
problem with her legs as she is aging. Okay. They don’t name it here. It is on Anderson
Ferry Road.
Andrea: Oh, okay. I think I know what you are talking about.
Maryland: That apartment. You hit like you are going to River Road, and it cuts off up in
there. Yeah, I lived there for a while in one of those apartments on the backside. That is
when I was at the College.
Andrea: Well, thank you very much for sharing your story with me.
Maryland: There is nothing exciting about my story. It is just an ordinary every day run
of the mill kind.
Andrea: An ordinary Sister of Charity is an extraordinary kind of a person most likely.
That is generally what I am finding out.
Maryland: Well, I am awfully glad. When are you going to…when is your next thing
occurring?
Andrea: My next step you mean?
Maryland: Yes.
Andrea: Well my………. (end of tape) [apostolic novitiate year is next.

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©Sisters of Charity Archives