- February 23, 2026 Sister Stories
Virginia Ross, who turned 100 on Feb. 8, has lived a life shaped by faith, family and an enduring love of learning, though she'd prefer we keep the celebration simple.
"I just want it to be quiet," she says. "I want to invite the sisters, the people around here and my family, and celebrate quietly."
Born in St. Louis, Sister Virginia grew up in a devout household just blocks from Calvary Cemetery. Her father ushered at 7:30 a.m. Mass, then returned for 11 a.m. Mass if the family had no Sunday afternoon plans. Her mother and aunt made the weekly Tuesday trek to the Rock Church for the Perpetual Help devotion. "I never heard screaming or yelling in my family," she recalls. Their Catholic faith was woven into everything.
She knew the Sisters of St. Joseph from grade school, where Mother Caroline Sanford served as principal, a beloved figure her brother and sister had before her. Sister Virginia was ready to have Mother Caroline in eighth grade when the principal moved to Georgia. "She was a very well-known person," Sister Virginia says, "and I missed her."
From first grade on, Sister Virginia knew she wanted to teach. She expected to teach history, but when she encountered how the textbooks of that era focused on what she saw as unsavory political maneuvering, she pivoted. Her brother was studying chemistry, so she thought she'd try it too.
The shift proved providential. When a new professor, Sister Helen Joseph Coerver, gave her first test and Sister Virginia scored in the 40s, the sister came around offering help. "I said, 'No, please. I want to go home and figure it out myself.'"
Years later, Sister Helen Joseph Coerver told her that response was exactly why she recommended her for graduate studies at Notre Dame.
"I'm still that way," Sister Virginia admits. "Maybe too strong in wanting to do it myself."
After temporary vows, she boarded a train to St. Joseph Indian School in Keshena, Wisconsin, where she helped in the little boys' playroom, taught seventh grade and learned what head lice were. "I was in another world," she laughs. From there, assignments took her to Waco, Texas, then nine years at Our Lady of Lourdes in St. Louis, followed by Indianapolis and Peoria.
At the Academy of Our Lady in Peoria, she became principal and witnessed the changes of Vatican II firsthand. She remembers walking into the lecture hall one day after setting aside her habit. The students screamed: "She's a redhead!"
When a Viatorian Brother from Spalding, spoke about his Peace Corps experience teaching English in Africa, something stirred. Sister Virginia had always assumed missionary work was out of reach because of a slight speech difficulty with consonant clusters. But teaching in English? That she could do. She applied, was accepted, and spent two years in Ghana, first on a mountaintop, then in Cape Coast, encountering missionaries from around the world. "It was a great blessing," she says.
Returning stateside, she completed a leadership program in Denver with 51 other participants, then spotted a job posting for Savannah, Georgia. She applied and spent the next three decades there, serving as director of Religious Education, superintendent of schools for the diocese and eventually returning to the classroom at St. Peter the Apostle, where she taught computer skills to students from kindergarten through eighth grade well into her 90s.
Working closely with the bishop and diocesan priests gave her a new appreciation for the Church. "I learned so much," she says. "The priests were going through the same things we go through, trying to figure out how to reach people. I saw the Church as so much more human."
In 2017, she returned to St. Louis and now resides at Nazareth Living Center, where she attends Mass and continues her mission of prayer and presence. She's grateful for the companionship of Sister Rosemary Flanagan, (also turning 100 later this year), who walks alongside her as she wheels through the halls.
Asked what has sustained her faith across a century, Sister Virginia's answer is simple: "Everything. I always thank God for the things that come my way. I feel that God has been extremely good to me my whole life."
She pauses, then adds with characteristic directness: "Make it simple. I'm happy."