Sister Dorothy Daly, CSJ

(S. Mary Malachy)

Hard worker, enjoyed life, caring

Tom and Florence (Winter) Daly of Fort Smith, Arkansas, lost their first two children when they were each around three months old. When their next child was to be born, Mrs. Daly decided to go to a hospital in Chicago where her sister had worked. After Dorothy was born, they remained in Illinois until after the baby was baptized at Ascension Church in Oak Park. In time, mother and daughter returned to Fort Smith where Dorothy grew up. Her formal education began with the Mercy Sisters at Immaculate Conception.

In January of her kindergarten year, her father had a stroke and died. Her mother took over his monument business to support them. Dorothy completed elementary education at St. Boniface, a Benedictine school. The sisters staffed an all-girls high school, but Dorothy preferred to attend St. Anne’s, a co-ed high school operated by the Sisters of Mercy. When she and a friend found their studies to be a bit boring, they went to summer school, took extra classes and graduated after three years.

Wanting to continue her education, she asked the sisters about colleges. Dorothy ruled out some that were too far away or had no easy direct transportation. Finding out that St. Louis had direct, overnight transportation, she looked at colleges there. The sisters mentioned Webster, Maryville and Fontbonne. Dorothy picked Fontbonne, delighted that they were a bit more liberal than some of the others. She felt the rules were more flexible and that she possibly had just a little more freedom than perhaps some of her friends did. She also found the sisters to be “nice and friendly.” Dorothy graduated from Fontbonne with a bachelor’s in psychology and a minor in French in 1949.

Dorothy’s mother was fine when she told her she wanted to enter the Sisters of St. Joseph. Though, she asked Dorothy not to enter the coming September but to wait a bit. She entered on February 11, 1950. Her train from Fort Smith was met at the station by Sisters Mary Alfred Nobel and Suzanne Marie Vachon who knew her from Fontbonne. When arriving at the Carondelet motherhouse, she recalled being somewhat shocked to see that a large brick building had been painted grey. Dorothy received the habit and the name Sister Mary Malachy on August 15, 1950, and made first vows on August 15, 1952.

Sister Dorothy’s first elementary education assignment was at St. Joseph Indian School in Keshena, Wisconsin (1952). She then went on to teach at St. Teresa of Avila in St. Louis (1955); Sacred Heart in Muskogee, Oklahoma (1961); St. Catherine in Denver (1962), and, finally, Holy Cross in Champaign, Illinois (1966).

In 1970, she left teaching to be the religious education coordinator at Holy Cross Parish in Champaign. She earned her master’s in theology from the University of Notre Dame in 1971. Three years later, she served as the religious education coordinator at St. Viator School/Parish in Chicago, and then at St. John Vianney Parish in Houston, Texas, from 1986 to 1991.

After a year-long sabbatical at Rockhaven Ecozoic Center in House Springs, Missouri, S. Dorothy trained as a counselor at the Consumer Credit Counsel Service in St. Louis. Remaining in the area and after a short time in transition, she was hired by the Salvation Army to be a data entry operator. She also served at St. Joseph Home for Boys as a receptionist/typist (1995) and at St. Louis Academy as a receptionist (2001).

Associate Gerry Rauch who was in a sectional group with S. Dorothy shares, “I was … so grateful for her welcome and kindness to all of us … She was always such a sweet soul.”

In 2002, though not a resident, S. Dorothy volunteered at the St. Joseph motherhouse until retiring in 2007. She continued residing in her own apartment until choosing prayer and presence at Nazareth Living Center in 2013.

By Sister Helen Oates