The Lord's Servant: Sister Sue

One day soon, the front door to the school will close tightly to the evening darkness of the final day of her life’s calling. Sister Suzanne Walker, as she has every day since 1975, will pause to take it all in and give silent thanks to her Lord for her worldly blessings before starting the short walk to a Convent she has called her home for 47 years. That is 47 years of watching, from the same threshold, the setting sun over the small northeast Missouri town, her hometown, of Monroe City. The sight, she says, gives her passion and we all need passion in our lives. Sister Suzanne recently announced this will be her last year as principal of Holy Rosary school. “I just know it is time for me to step aside,” she says.

When pressed, Walker will admit she takes only a momentary nightly reprise to admire the spirituality of what has become her personal nemesis, the setting sun. And then only on the rare days when she departs her office before that sun has sunken below the western horizon. The rest of her day is spent in a race against her rival, a race she always loses. There are never enough hours in her day. For truth be told, she is at the school most days before the sun has risen. She seldom is home before 7:30 pm, some nights much later. “I guess I am just a slow worker,” she says. Co-workers chide her for her habit of digging out lunch leftovers to heat in the school cafeteria microwave for her evening meal. 

Walker has seen both sides now. An eye-defying 75 years old, she has been a Dominican nun since 1967, when at the not so wizened age of 21 years she took her solemn lifetime vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. 

They say graveyards are full of indispensable people- we can all be replaced. Holy Rosary parishioner after parishioner tell me Walker's impending retirement will be a good candidate for the first exception of such wisdom. She is today undeniably a Holy Rosary school institution and a small-town treasure. 

Sister Sue, as three generations of students have known her, is a Holy Rosary High School graduate herself, Class of 1964. She says she led the typical life of a small town 1960’s high school girl. Played sports, worked a part-time job. Only once as we spoke did I see any hint from within her of the seven deadly sins, in this case pride, but I admit I entrapped her. “I read you were all-conference in basketball,” I prodded. The temptation was too great. “I sure was,” she affirmed with an ear-to-ear grin, a small concession to pride, I guess – but not exactly giving the devil his due, either.

The high school closed its doors in 1966 and since then Holy Rosary has focused on educating the parish students through the 8th grade.  For the last four decades plus seven years, Sister Sue has been, for the Holy Rosary community, the face, the spirit, and the keeper of the faith; always the rock, always the leader. 

Born in Monroe City in 1946 at the inception of the Baby Boom explosion, she is the second in a close-knit family of ten children and the oldest girl. Her rank on the family food chain explains her natural paternal instincts. “For as long as I can remember I was involved in caring for my younger siblings. That is the way it was done in large families back then. We were not a farm family with farm chores for the kids to do; but there was still plenty of help our parents needed and we were expected to kick in and help.”

Her parents ran a well-known local furniture store. All nine of her siblings are alive and six live in the immediate Monroe City area. 

“I knew from a very young age,” Walker states, “that I wanted to be a nun. By 4th grade I knew I had a calling from the Lord, a vocation to the Dominican Sisters was my future.”

At first, Walker said she had thought nursing would be her mission. But an adolescent late-night dream changed her life’s path. “I'm not really one who believes strongly in dreams,” she today says. “But I did have a dream when I was about 14 that I had become a teacher and not a nurse. I took that as a strong sign from God and began to prepare myself to teach.”

Like all high school graduates, the summer after receiving her diploma from Holy Rosary was a time of change. “After I graduated in the summer of 1964 I enrolled at the Dominican School, in Sparkill, New York. It was about 30 miles north of New York City. Obviously, a lot different from the area I had grown up. But I don't really remember being homesick, I did miss some things, for sure but I felt such a strong calling to God and that's where he intended me to be and what I was to do with my life. I was focused on preparing myself for my calling, learning to be a teacher.”

“I graduated in three years in; the fall of 1967,” Sister Sue recalls. “I then began teaching the first grade at Saint Anthony's in the Bronx, New York. I had 52 students in my class, my first-year teaching,” she says with a laugh. “Fifty-two students. All. Day. Long. Let that sink in. But with the Lord’s help, we made it. I learned quickly that I had to find lessons that would hold the attention of my students. And of course, not all my students would be on the same learning levels, especially reading. So, I might be teaching to two rows that needed extra help and the next two rows might be working ahead. It was very important to be organized or I would have never survived.”

” It was a very solid, Italian, middle-class neighborhood, and we had a lot of parental support,” Sister Sue continued. “It was a good school and I felt like I was successful, that I had done what God had sent me there to do. It was a good start for me, reaffirmed that my life belonged to God and he wanted me to educate his children.”

After three years in the New York Bronx, Walker saw a chance for a change. “By 1970, a lot of policy upgrades had taken place in the Catholic Church’s hierarchy,” she states. “We were now allowed to request where we would like to go, whereas before you just sat back and you were told by your superiors where you needed to be. I requested an opportunity to get home and closer to my extended family. I was given a job at Saint Thomas Moore Catholic School in (Missouri) North Saint Louis County. I taught first grade and I stayed for five years. In 1975 an opportunity opened that I could move back to Monroe City and teach at Holy Rosary. I jumped at it. It was a dream come true and I have been here ever since.”

Monroe City is a farm town in the middle of the prairie with four bars, 2300 people and one (blinking after 10 pm) stoplight. Sister Suzanne, a lady with the poise of a princess and the daring of a dragoon, fits right in. She can be prim and proper one moment, leading morning prayers; down and scruffy the next, right in the middle of a spirited recess basketball game. 

In Monroe City there are a few haves, mostly legacy farmers, but there are many have-nots, proud people struggling to get by, hanging on to a way of life no one wants to make a reality TV show about. But for Sister Sue, her hometown fits her like a glove. “The people here are good, solid people. Everything I have ever needed for contentment, I have here. The question for me has always been ‘why would I want to leave,’ and I guess I haven't come up with a good answer yet.”

Sister Sue tells me she was blessed to have been with her parents in both their active retirement years and in their declining years. “Many Sisters give up their family to serve God’s calling, maybe even in another part of the world. The Lord never asked me to make that sacrifice. I was blessed in that I could both follow my religious commitment and my desire to stay connected to my family.”

Tim Hadfield was a 1985 graduate of Holy Rosary. This summer he will retire as the Superintendent of the Camdenton, MO public schools. His 30-year successful professional career comes as no surprise to Sister Sue. "I always knew Tim would do well," she tells me. 

Hadfield has throughout his life been influenced by Sister Sue. "She was my second grade teacher," he recalls. "Then she was my 7th grade teacher and when we went into 8th grade, it was her first year as Principal. She was a very soft spoken person, but when she got stern, you knew it was time to listen. She always had our respect, total respect. She just cared so deeply for her students and her love for Holy Rosary was so obvious, even to us at an age when at lot of things aren't always obvious."

With Hadfield chosen career in education, Sister Sue would become a colleague, but still a mentor. "My first job in administration was Junior High Principal in (nearby) South Shelby. We would play Holy Rosary in football and basketball and I remember being proud to speak with her as a fellow administrator. That is the type of influence she had over me, and again, for the respect I had for her. Even as professional equals, I never felt on her level, I still wanted her approval, I still wanted her to be proud of me. To have that type of life long influence over me, for so many years, well, what bigger compliment could I give her. "

Susan Spalding Winking had Sister Sue for a teacher in first and second grade, has had two daughters graduate from Holy Rosary and served a term on the school board. From all angles, her respect for Sister Sue is immense. 

"What she has done, and has done for years," says Winking, "is nothing short of amazing. Her life is the kids of Holy Rosary. They are all her kids. Sister Sue is not a dramatic person; she is very good at deescalating situations. Her calm keeps her in control. The respect she has from the kids is something that has to be earned and she has earned it. All the kids can be in the gym for a program, loud, just being kids and when Sister Sue walks in the whole gym goes stone silent. She does not have to say a word. She is not an intimidating person, actually she is the least intimidating person you will ever meet. The (reason) she is so respected by everyone is because she cares."

Winking, like many I talked with, praises Sister Sues' total dedication to her school. "She is not only the principal, but the athletic director, the choral director, sweeps the floor at ball games, teaches religion classes and if there is an opportunity to make some extra money for the school by selling popcorn at a community event, she will be there selling it."

"Both of my daughters are now teachers," Winking shares. "And I have grandkids that now attend Holy Rosary. Sister Sue has been so important to our family on so many different levels over so many years. If I had to sum up Sister Sue in one word it would be "servant." There is no one else like her."

Everyone in Monroe City wants to talk about Sister Sue but no one in Monroe City wants to talk about Sister Sue retiring. Debbie Quinn says the town is in collective civic shock. Quinn is a retired teacher herself and a Holy Rosary parish member. Sister Sue directed the education of her three children. The community has embraced Sister Sue, Quinn says, because she is like the town itself: parochial, proud, tough, and determined to win in the end. In the local rural vernacular, always a work horse, never a show horse. 

“Sister Sue never lets anything stand before the school mission,” Debbie Quinn observes. “You always know where you stand with her; as a parent, as a parishioner, as a friend; you can count on Sister Sue, always. I still can’t make myself think about the school without her. We will survive and we will continue to thrive, because of her and what she has built, but that doesn’t make it any easier.”

A small-town work ethic goes well with what Holy Rosary has stood for: always work hard, always serious about academics. They grow up, they get a job, they marry, they have kids. Most have sent their own children to the one who was trusted to educate them; just like their parents and grandparents did - Sister Sue. "It makes me feel old,” she says, “but I taught some of today’s student’s grandparents.” It is a knee shaking responsibility, but “it is what God had planned for my life,” she says.  

Barb Quinn taught 2nd grade under Sister Sue’s direction for 28 years. She retired seven years ago, at the end of the 2014 school year. I asked Barb Quinn what it will take to replace her longtime friend and professional comrade. “Three people,” she responded, without hesitation. “And that is only if all three are not lazy and (are) willing to work 18-hour days,” says the mother of four, all, of course, Holy Rosary grads.

Sister Sue’s cleaning of the school building every summer is local legend. Barb Quinn still shakes her head at the routine Walker developed. “Until the old school was torn down, five years ago, Sister Sue would perform the summer cleaning by herself. The whole building. She would do two whole rooms a week. She was still doing this every day, every summer until she was near 70. And the building had no air conditioning.”

According to Barb Quinn, the annual summer scrubbing was of every square inch of the old building. The good Sister’s stamp of approval was final. When Sister Sue says it was clean, it was clean. “She would strip and refinish the floors every year. Classrooms and hallways. She would carry two five-gallon buckets full of soapy water from the basement up to the second floor. Trip after trip. Her summer cleaning of the school will always be a legend around Holy Rosary.”

Walker today says modestly that it would take, especially as she got older, a week or two to loosen her up for her summer custodial Crusade, but germs didn’t have a prayer once Sister Sue hit her summer cleaning stride. “She had it so organized it was unbelievable,’ says Barb Quinn. “Big pieces of furniture that she couldn't move herself, she would make sure after every Sunday Mass she would latch on to enough men, ‘come on, it will just take a minute,’ she would say, and they would get moved what she needed to get out of her way for the next week’s cleaning.” She would then set her Sabbath indentured servant crew upon the task of moving back the furniture into last week’s now “ready for a new school year” rooms. 

“I knew every inch of that old building,” Walker admits, “that helped me, I was physically connected to every part and that gave me ownership. The work (summer cleaning) wasn’t as hard as they make it sound. I just took my time, and I liked the solitude.” She then lowers her voice and lets me in on a secret. “Sometimes, when I wanted to be left alone cleaning, I would pull the shades and turn out the lights and people would think I was gone for the day. Then, with no interruptions, I could really get to cleaning.”

In 2016, the parish raised the funds to build a new school. It was a Herculean task, just the kind Sister Sue seeks out. The fundraising and the successful completion, under budget, is fondly known today amongst the parish faithful as the “Miracle on Locust Street.” 

“We needed a new building for two reasons,” Walker says. “The old school was getting to the point that the maintenance could not be maintained without huge remodeling expenses. We had no handicap access. The heating system was falling apart. But, a new school also sent a signal, ‘Holy Rosary is here to stay. We are not going away,”’ she says with pride.

The deteriorating condition of the old school building made its use for non-classroom space impractical. It had to be torn down. “I thought that would really be hard for me to watch,” say Sister Sue. “My life and soul were in that old building. But once we moved the classroom furniture, the books, the religious statues; it was like the spirit went from the old building to the new building. I felt no sadness the day they tore the old building down. I don’t miss the old building, it was just that, an old building, but I am blessed to have so many good memories of the people who were in it, whose lives spiritually touched mine.” 

At a young age Suzanne Walker made vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. No regrets, she says today. “I have had a wonderful life and now it is time for the next chapter.”

“I intend to stay away from the school for a while. Whoever takes my place doesn’t need me looking over their shoulder,” she says of what will be her relationship with her impending successor. “But I do hope when the time is right, the Lord will direct me back to the school and there will be a place for me, a new way I can contribute.”

Sister Sue does not like to talk about herself. I mention the thousands of Monroe City kids she has influenced, and she changes the subject to school air conditioning and learning styles. I pay compliment to her physical stamina, and she deflects to a lecture on the role of school lunches in the education of pre-teen students. 

She expertly weaves - diverting scenes on the tapestry of her life to so many distracting stitches that you must strain to see the fundamental fibers that make Sister Sue a local treasure. But they are there, her own simple quintessentially American story, testimonials to a life well lived: The faith to commit at an early age to a simple, selfless life. The toughness to stay the chosen course with no creeping self-doubts or second guessing. And now for the closing act, the courage to grudgingly and with grace concede eventual defeat, to some degree, anyway, in her race with the setting sun. For one who has led a life so full of a singular passion, the last is surely the hardest.