|
 Sr.
Colleen Gallagher, OP
Golden Jubilarian
50 years (July 9, 1954)
A lifelong Columbus native, Sr. Colleen originally came to St. Mary of
the Springs as a school girl. Moving from the Academy to the College was
an easy transition, but moving on to the convent was a “pull”
she says she resisted. “When I was a freshman, my parents moved
to Chicago for my dad’s job,” Sr. Colleen remembered. “I
went too, but I was so homesick that when they offered me the chance to
come back to school in Columbus, I was on the next train.”
“I didn’t want to be a Sister,” insists Sr. Colleen,
describing her vocation as a restlessness that demanded a response, despite
her resistance. Now, 50 years later, she declares it has been a “grand
life!”
As a new young nun in 1954, she was sent to St. Clare de Montefalco in
Grosse Pointe, Michigan, for her first assignment. Along with fellow Jubilarian
Sr. Mary Ellen Lynch, they arrived at the large convent and tried to figure
out how it all worked, even while they struggled to figure out how to
teach. She still hears from one of her third graders from that time, as
she does from other former students, and it is “always humbling”
she admits, to hear that she touched someone’s life in ways she
didn’t realize.
Sr. Colleen had a variety of ministries over the years. She taught at
Annunciation school in Harlem during the height of the civil rights era
and remembers going to the funeral of Malcolm X. She admits to her chagrin
that neither that assignment nor a later teaching stint in Puerto Rico
ever aided her in mastering the Spanish language. She laughs as she remembers
parent-teacher conferences where her students had to be the translators.
“I’m sure they never reported anything but sterling behavior!”
she quipped.
Returning to Columbus, she was assigned as principal to Holy Name School
from 1966 to 1976. She then went on to use her administrative skills in
the Diocesan Offices of the Department of Education.
While at St .Mathias parish later on, she had so many duties that the
pastor called her his “hands and feet.” Sr. Colleen loved
her duties of visiting the sick. She found a new gifts within herself
in chaplaincy work and put them to work at two local hospitals. After
earning certification through the National Association of Catholic Chaplins,
Sr. Colleen found great satisfaction in her work first with St. Anthony’s
and then with Mt. Carmel Health systems, where she was Vice President
of Mission.
Sr. Colleen now serves in the newly created Promoter of the Arts position
for the Dominican Sisters. Recognizing the long history in the Dominican
Order of embracing the arts as a form of preaching, Sr. Colleen is helping
others to explore their creative natures and praise God through the gifts
of the arts.
|
