Threshold Winter 2011

Golden Jubilarian Still Excited About Teaching and Learning

A fifty-year commitment starts with a basic decision. “At various times I wanted to be a nurse, a teacher, a nun, a doctor, a farmer’s wife with a dozen children, and I even considered what were then ‘the women’s branches’ of military service,” admits Sister Delores Dolezal. She finally picked one and, on July 11, she celebrated fifty years as a Benedictine sister at Mount St. Scholastica in Atchison, Kansas.

It was a rare event for the Mount, a golden jubilee celebration for only one sister. Two other sisters who professed in the same year, Sisters Rose Ann Barmann and Anne Stedman are now members of the Mount’s daughterhouse, Benet Hill Monastery in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Two more sisters, Sister Marian Bellotti of Benet Hill and Karen Heideman are deceased.

Sister Delores, a native of Omaha, Nebraska, first encountered the Atchison community when her pastor brought some of the parish youth to visit. “I was so impressed when I heard the sisters singing in the chapel that I began to consider what it might be like to live with women dedicated to seeking God,” she said.

She came to find out what it was like and knew that what she saw was the right choice for her. She now celebrates being one of those dedicated women for over half a century. She also had one of her other early ambitions fulfilled when she become an elementary teacher, a career that has given her great satisfaction. She has taught all grades, but especially loves first grade. “It’s very hard,” she recognizes, “because they have to get the basics of reading, writing, math, their faith, computer use, spelling and everything about school. At the same time, there’s an excitement to it. It’s all new and they are so uninhibited. They teach me, too.”

Most of her years of teaching have been spent in the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas. For more than 20 years, she has been the first grade teacher at Sts. Peter and Paul School in Seneca, Kansas – long enough to begin to teach the children of former students. She never tires of the challenge and, with an exuberance and curiosity like that of the children, she sees each class and each child as a new and unique experience to be viewed with fresh eyes.

She sees her years in religious life in the same way. As Sister Anne Shepard, prioress, noted in her remarks at the jubilee celebration, “From manual typewriters and chalk to computers and smartboards, from Latin Mass to English, from ‘Dick and Jane’ to much more interesting and inclusive primers, life has changed. But what has not changed, except to deepen, is your love for God, prayer and community.”

Sister Delores feels that her life has been richly blessed and is still a work in progress. “St. Benedict’s way recognizes human fragility while also providing the wisdom needed to help one live a good life. For me, it says, ‘Delores, be faithful to the struggle.’” This is how she continues to live, with a strong combination of determination and enthusiasm.