s. laura ann grady

60th Jubilee
Sister Laura Ann was born in Savannah, Ga. on the Feast of St. Joseph in 1933. After graduating from St. Vincent’s Academy in 1951, she entered the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, and was received into the novitiate in 1952.

In 1954, she returned to Georgia where she served as a teacher in Augusta, Atlanta, and Washington, Ga. until 1963. In that year, the Georgia Province was assumed into the St. Louis Province, and Sister Laura Ann moved to the Mid-west.

From 1963 to 1971, she served at St. Roch’s in St. Louis, St. Viator’s and Little Flower High School in Chicago, and Valle High School in Ste. Genevieve, Mo.

She retuned to Augusta, Ga. and served as a teacher at Aquinas High School there from 1971 to 1976. In that year, she enrolled at Indiana University to pursue a doctorate in Educational Administration. After graduation, she returned to Augusta’s Aquinas High School as assistant principal, then as principal until 1987.

From 1987 to 2000, she served the African American Community at Paine College in Augusta as assistant professor of education. In 2000, she resigned to care for her invalid mother who lived with her. However, with the help of a hired care giver, she was able to work one half day, as a pastoral associate at St. Teresa of Avila Parish in Grovetown, Ga. a suburb of Augusta.

She retired in 2009 and continues to live in Augusta doing volunteer work as a diocesan annulment advocate, sacramental instructor for older children, a part-time case worker for Catholic Social Services, and a member of the RCIA team.

Sister Laura Ann loves God, people, literature, music, and get-togethers, mostly in that order. She is involved in a monthly Writers’ Club with the other CSJs in the area. There we delight in telling old history, expressing our views, and even our hopes. Laughter and fun are our main goals.

Around Augusta, she joyfully meets former students, colleagues, and friends who know her name, but she cannot always remember theirs.

In her “spare time” she likes to read, knit and watch the Atlanta Braves.