Sisters of Charity of New York
Interview with Sr. Linda Giuli, SC
Wednesday January 8, 2018 10:12AM • 30:14
Angelica Bullock 00:00
Today is September 10th, 2018. The interviewee is Sister. Linda Giuli. The interviewer is Angelica
Bullock. I am interviewing Sr. Linda in Boyle Hall in the archives Reading Room; and it's about 1:00pm.
Sr. Linda, can you state your full name and your religious name?
Sr. Linda Giuli 00:30
My full name is Sr. Linda Giuli. I was baptized Madeline Linda because Linda is not a saint, and the
priest who baptized me suggested to my mother that Madeline was a good name. So it's Madeline
Linda. My religious name was Sr. Mary Therese.
Angelica Bullock 00:58
And how old are you currently?
Sr. Linda Giuli 01:01
I am 76 years old.
Angelica Bullock 01:03
And when did you enter the Sisters of Charity?
Sr. Linda Giuli 01:07
September 8th, 1961, at age 18.
Angelica Bullock 01:14
Let's talk about your family life. Where were you born?
Sr. Linda Giuli 01:20
I was born in Westchester Square Hospital in the Bronx. I grew up in the Bronx. I even remember my
address was 3029 Barnes Avenue. I was there till I was about nine years old.
Angelica Bullock 01:38
And where did you grow up after the age of nine?
Sr. Linda Giuli 01:43
My mother and I moved to... upper in the Bronx. We went from Barnes Avenue up to Wakefield. So I
grew up in the north Bronx in Wakefield, went to school, St. Francis of Rome was our parish and went
to grammar school there and then to St. Barnabas High School.

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Angelica Bullock 02:11
And can you tell me a little bit about your parents and your siblings, if you had any? I have no siblings. I
was perfect my mother said, so she didn't need to have any more children. The one that she had was
perfect. My mother had a very hard pregnancy with me. She told me that story. And because of that,
my father was called to the army and they gave him a deferment. So after I was born in June, he didn't
have to go to the army till October. And because of that, it was World War II, my father did not get sent
overseas; he was lucky. He spent his army years in California. And my father happened to have very
wonderfully talented hands. He could do anything. And he was assigned to make prosthetic limbs for
the soldiers. And when he came home, I was three years old. And what did your father do after?
Sr. Linda Giuli 03:34
After, my father had a hard time finding work. He had several jobs he worked as a maintenance man.
He worked for a man in Mamaroneck who had an estate. That's the man who gave him the piano that
came in through our living room window and two years later went out our living room window. My father
played the violin and the accordion, the sisters taught him to do that. My father grew up in Colorado, so
I'm not sure what sisters taught him, but he was taught music by the sisters. My father eventually got a
job with New York City Housing and he became an architect and a builder for New York City Housing.
In fact, he designed and built the building that Sr. Carol DeAngelo grew up in, Evenwald Housing, was
the name of the group of buildings, Evenwald in the north Bronx.
Angelica Bullock 05:04
And what about your mother? What did she do?
Sr. Linda Giuli 05:09
Well, my mother was a housewife, a homemaker until I was about 10. And then she had various jobs
and then eventually became the Assistant Manager of John Wanamaker's in Cross County in Yonkers.
John Wanamaker was a very famous department store.
Angelica Bullock 05:37
And what inspired her to start working when you were 10? Because she didn't want to leave me alone
in the house, until I guess she thought I was more responsible. You know, my mother had a history of
fashion when she was younger. She worked as a draper and for a designer house for clothes, women's
clothes. And so she always had her hand somehow in fashion in the kind of work that she had. Did you
have any pets growing up?
Sr. Linda Giuli 06:17
I had a dog. I loved my dog; my dog loved me. He ate all the food that I didn't want.
Angelica Bullock 06:28
What was your dog's name? Skupper. S-k-u-p-p-e-r. Skupper had that name because they didn't call
them Skipper. My Uncle John was in the Navy and he found this little pup. And he smuggled this little
doggie onto the ship. And the guys took care of him, and he put him in his duffel bag. And when he
brought him home, my Aunt Eleanor did not want the dog. So my father said, "Oh, we'll take him." So
he became our dog. Around what age did you receive the dog?

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Sr. Linda Giuli 07:11
Well, I guess around 5 or so. I'm not exactly sure but I just remember having the dog in my house. I
might have even been younger than that, because I remember he used to come, my mother used to
insist that I have a nap and I didn't like to nap. She'd put me in my in my crib, I can remember that. And
he would come and put his little snout in between the, what do they call the parts of the crib that are ...
Angelica Bullock 07:52
...the opening section? Yeah, he used to put his snout in there and I used to play with him and he used
to play back, Then my mother would come in and she tell him "Out you, get out!" And he'd get out. And
then I could go to sleep. I wouldn't sleep with him in there. And how long did you have Skupper for?
Until I moved, till I was 9. Do you remember anything in particular, anything special about your
childhood?
Sr. Linda Giuli 08:27
Well, I went to public school. Immaculate Conception, Gun Hill Road was my Parish, but the school
wasn't built yet. They were still building it and collecting money from people for it. So I went to public
school for kindergarten and I was left back in kindergarten, because they told my mother I was slow. So
I was in kindergarten for two years. I remember my first teacher was Mrs. Davis. And then the second
one was Mrs. Roses and her son, William Roses sat at my table and I liked him. I liked William. We
were buddies.
Angelica Bullock 09:13
Can you explain what that means that you were left back in kindergarten?
Sr. Linda Giuli 09:20
I guess they meant retarded or something. But it took a long time for me to learn how to read. I finally
went to Immaculate Conception School when it opened, and I think that was second grade. But I
couldn't receive my First Holy Communion because I couldn't memorize the Catechism and I couldn't
read. So I received my first communion in the third grade. I was the tallest kid in on the line. I was last
online because I was the tallest and my mother made my dress because they didn't have First
Communion dresses in my size. I had that dress, I loved that dress; I thought it was beautiful. And what
she did too was she made different color slips. So through the white eyelit the blue or the pink that she
made, yellow. And then I had matching socks. I remember that as a kid.
Angelica Bullock 10:35
What influenced you to join the Sisters of Charity. Why did you decide to join?
Sr. Linda Giuli 10:42
I guess I decided to join because I felt the call. And I know it's hard to believe but I was a pretty serious
kid and I thought about it a lot. And I got to know my sponsor at St. Barnabas and I talked to her a little
bit, talked to her a lot, actually. And it was hard in a way because my mother was alone. If I would go to
the convent, my mother would be alone. But I still thought it was the right thing to do.

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Angelica Bullock 11:34
When you joined, what did your family say?
Sr. Linda Giuli 11:37
Oh, I couldn't repeat it. This microphone would explode. They were I think, at the beginning, they were
pretty shocked.
Angelica Bullock 11:54
Why?
Sr. Linda Giuli 11:56
My family were not, were good people. My uncles, my aunts, they were very good people but they were
not, I'm going to use the word religious, they were not church-going people for the most part. But they
were good people and they were very surprised; they were shocked. In fact, one of my uncles, my
Uncle Joe, who I really loved a lot, he came in, he grabbed me one time we were together at his house.
And and he said, "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"
Angelica Bullock 12:43
What did you say?
Sr. Linda Giuli 12:44
I told them that yeah, I thought I knew what I was doing. I had boyfriends. I lived a very normal life. I
went out a lot. I worked. I was in sports. I had friends.
Angelica Bullock 13:05
What did your friends think? My friends were mostly in school with me so they knew me pretty well. My
friends were alright with it. My mother said to me, "If you're not happy, I want you to come home." So
once that she got used to the idea and she would ask me when we had visiting days, "Are you happy?"
Do you remember entering the first day?
Sr. Linda Giuli 13:44
Oh, yeah, it was a beautiful day. It was sunny and warm and my Aunt Evelyn drove us up to the Mount.
And she'd let me drive and I went the wrong way on a one way street. Nothing bad happened. Nothing
bad happened. I guess it was nerves. But we got there okay. And it was just a beautiful sunny day. It
was a Friday, because I remember what we were served for supper. It was tuna salad and sliced
tomatoes and bread and I guess they were supposed to be either hard boiled or soft boiled eggs and it
wasn't. When we cracked the eggs, the eggs were only half-cooked. They were slimey. And the novice
at our table said, "You don't have to eat it," and I said, "Good, 'cause I'm not!'"
Angelica Bullock 14:57
Do you remember what you packed to enter?

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Sr. Linda Giuli 15:02
When we got a letter of acceptance either enclosed in that letter or separate, we got a list of things that
we were supposed to send in a trunk. And my sponsor and I went shopping and we got all the stuff.
Certain underwears and certain soaps and certain deodorants and shoes and stockings and all that
kind of stuff.
Angelica Bullock 15:34
Did any of it seem weird or unknown to you or did you already know people who had joined the Sisters?
Yeah, but I didn't realize what it was; I didn't get into what you brought with you. Everything was either
black or white. How did you feel when you were entering? Did you feel excited or nervous?
Sr. Linda Giuli 16:01
Oh, I wasn't nervous. No, I wasn't nervous and I wasn't ever homesick. I wasn't ever homesick, not the
way some other people were. I didn't spend a lot of time crying or upset or no, I was okay. Kind of took
things as they came. And of course, I was perfect. So in many ways, I followed the rules for the most
part and when I didn't, I was lucky enough not to get caught.
Angelica Bullock 16:46
What kind of rules did you have your first year? Silence-keeping, not talking and of course, I was a girl
so I like to talk. You had to get used to not talking in certain times and places. It wasn't so hard it you
know, you got used to it after a while. Not having any choice of food, that was hard. Not terrible but a
little hard. You ate what was served. You couldn't say, "I don't like this or I don't want this. I'd like
something else." That didn't happen. Getting up at 5:00, after 5:00 in the morning was the hardest;
probably the hardest thing to get used to. There was what they call the rising bell. It was a loud, very
loud bell, that knocked you on your feet. It was so horrible. And I just wasn't used to getting up at 5:00
o'clock. I'm still not used to getting up at 5:00 o'clock. Do you know why you had to get up so early?
Sr. Linda Giuli 18:21
Yeah, because we went to the chapel to pray. And then we went to mass and then we had breakfast.
And then we had prayers, then we had readings and class, that was forever. The day was very filled
with activities and you had house duties, you know, different variety of things that you did or were
assigned to actually.
Angelica Bullock 18:53
I want to talk a little bit about you and your college years. We had school, part of what we did as
postulants and novices was we had class and even when we became junior professed and moved to
LeGras, we had class at the college. And when I went out on mission we had to come back on
Saturdays for class. Education-wise we were all offered and given the best of education, I think
opportunities, etc. Did you take classes only with Sisters? No, after I graduated from the college here,
when I was in class here, some of the girls that I was in high school with were in my class. Then when I
graduated from here, I was told to go on for a master's and I went to Hunter College in the city and
finished two masters degrees there. But I always wanted to be a nurse. I couldn't even imagine my
whole life in school. I didn't particularly care for school. And I didn't particularly like children. So both
things made it a little difficult. But if I was to teach, I was to teach, it was an obedience. I wasn't going to

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leave because of it. It was something that I was going to do in terms of an assigned ministry. But when I
got a chance to make a choice I did.
Sr. Linda Giuli 20:18
And you said you received two Master's degrees?
Angelica Bullock 20:51
One was in elementary education and the other one was in... I'm trying to think of what that degree
was; I can't remember. And how long did it take you to complete both degrees?
Sr. Linda Giuli 21:06
Oh, it went quickly because I went twice a week. I was teaching in Rego Park in Queens and I'd take
the Q44 bus into 59th Street and First Avenue, and I'd walk up to Hunter. I did that twice a week and on
Saturday, sometimes on Saturday. So I got finished pretty fast. And it wasn't until 1977, '76 actually,
when I pursued the nursing with the president who was in office at that time.
Angelica Bullock 21:56
So how did you start your second career in nursing. You mentioned the president. Did she give you the
okay?
Sr. Linda Giuli 22:06
Yes. Yeah, I went to talk to Margaret Dowling, I went to talk to Sr. Margaret. I told her; it was difficult
because Sr. Margaret had been superintendent of schools. So to tell the superintendent of schools that
you hated to be in school was a little bit difficult but, she really was very good to me and she
understood. But she asked me to stay in the classroom until things were settled. So I took the MCAT,
which was the boards that you had to take when you apply for medical school, and I did; I passed. I had
studied on my own and I passed and I got into New York Medical. Soon to find out after a year that it
was not to be because the amount of work and reading was too much for me. So I switched over to the
nurse practitioner program in Pace University, and I completed the program there.
Angelica Bullock 23:09
Did you enjoy your time there at Pace?
Sr. Linda Giuli 23:11
Absolutely, it was great. I got a great education.
Angelica Bullock 23:15
And what did you do after you graduated?
Sr. Linda Giuli 23:19
Oh, my first job was with the Westchester County Department of Health at the New Rochelle District
Office. I lived in Mamaroneck at the time, so that was easy. And after a couple of years I went to Burikin
Family Clinic in East Harlem and after that, I went to Montefiore for 22 years. And after that I went to St.
Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx. That was an interesting job, I liked it very much. It was psychology and
drug addiction. I took care of a lot of AIDS patients.
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Angelica Bullock 24:11
How did you feel having a new career after teaching? Did you think of your...
Sr. Linda Giuli 24:20
I was glad to be out of school. I liked the work as a nurse practitioner and I worked with really, really
wonderful people.
Angelica Bullock 24:33
Do you think you would have stayed in the community if the President told you that you couldn't
become a nurse practitioner?
Sr. Linda Giuli 24:44
Of course I would have stayed. Of course, that was never an issue.
Angelica Bullock 24:53
So you would have been okay with being a teacher?
Sr. Linda Giuli 24:58
Sure, I would have beat up all the kids everyday and given them a lot of homework and been really
mean, but I would have stayed.
Angelica Bullock 25:12
Do you think at the time that it was easier to make this switch from teaching to being a nurse
practitioner? Just because it was kind of that time, like during the 70s where things were changing in
the church and I guess changing with the Sisters?
Sr. Linda Giuli 25:30
And I was young, I mean, I was only, 33. You know, I wasn't ever adverse to change in fact, I greeted
change. I mean, I never had a problem with that. I rolled with the punches pretty easily.
Angelica Bullock 25:54
Why did you want to become a nurse practitioner?
Sr. Linda Giuli 25:59
Always from when I was a little girl always wanted to be a nurse. Always.
Angelica Bullock 26:06
Did you know why or do you just feel like you had a calling to be a nurse? Yeah, I did. Was there
anyone else in your family who was a nurse or a doctor or in medicine? No, one of my younger cousins,
two of my younger cousins became nurses also. When you were a nurse, did you ever see God in your
work?

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Sr. Linda Giuli 26:36
Being on that level with people, I think is a spirituality in itself. And when I was working with AIDS
people, drug addiction and AIDS people, that was very serious work. Very, very often their lives, you
knew that their lives were going to be so shortened and ... I guess I'm just trying to think on how to say,
being kind to people who are so sick with so little hope and in those days, if you had AIDS there was
not much hope to survive. Being kind and understanding and caring for people with disease of that
magnitude was being very, I think in the greatest definition of being religious. When I was in Rego Park
which was the Brooklyn Diocese I got into involved in ITV, Instructional Television (Archdiocese of New
York). And always one of the reasons why communications was my second Master's. But then again, I
got changed back to New York to St. Mary's in Yonkers, so I didn't need it anymore. I'm trying to...
Angelica Bullock 28:23
What did you do at ITV?
Sr. Linda Giuli 28:27
I actually did television, not live; it was filmed. I prepared lesson plans for little children, first grade, in
fact, I wore a pale blue habit. It was the same habit that we had in white, only it was pale blue because
white was not good for television; it was too bright. It was pale blue, and I would put that on when I got
to the studio, and then take it off to come home. It was interesting.
Angelica Bullock 29:01
Did you like it? No, I wouldn't want to do it forever. In fact, I didn't want to be in school. I mean, I never
really wanted to be in school. One of the good things that happened when I was in Rego Park, and I
loved the people in Rego Park. They were many, many of the people were Cuban refugees. They came
over in the Mariel boats. They were wonderful, wonderful people, and I needed to learn to speak
Spanish. My Spanish wasn't good enough. So somebody put my address down as Mount St. Vincent,
instead of real far, and I got a chance to study Spanish in Puerto Rico one summer, and that helped a
lot. I didn't know much about TV back then, but wasn't the rise of TV as we do it now during the time
you were working for ITV, in the sixties? Well, it was a new concept in education, that's for sure and the
Brooklyn Diocese was wonderful in terms of the leadership they had in education. So the use of
television in classroom was good.

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