Sister Mary Shryock, CSJ
January 30, 1928 - November 4, 2023
(S. Anthony Bernard)
A good sense of humor, fun to be with, a very caring person.
Mary Irene, the first child of Arthur and Della (Reiferscheid) Shryock of Peoria, Illinois, arrived on January 30, 1928. Her elementary school was staffed by Dominican Sisters from Sinsinawa, Wisconsin. Sister Mary recalls that she “surely fell in love with them, and they were great in everything that they did.” Mary loved music and took piano lessons and, eventually, flute and organ. Although the Dominican sisters offered her a scholarship to their high school in Wisconsin, her parents felt she was too young to be away from home. Mary enrolled in The Academy of our Lady in Peoria, staffed by the Sisters of St. Joseph.
She entered the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in 1946 and received the habit and the name Sister Anthony Bernard in 1947. During the novitiate, she took organ lessons from Sister Victorine Klein and piano from Sister John Joseph Bezdek. In 1949, her first assignment was teaching music and giving private lessons at two schools: Saints Mary Magdalene and Margaret of Scotland (both in St. Louis). In 1951, she taught at St. James in Denver. Returning to Missouri in 1956, S. Mary continued that same schedule of teaching music and giving private lessons at St. Mary in Bridgeton, Missouri, and Our Lady of the Presentation in St. Louis. Teaching at St. Philip Neri, also in St. Louis, followed a year later.
Each summer, S. Mary continued her organ lessons at Fontbonne College (now University). In 1958, she earned a bachelor’s degree in music/organ from Fontbonne and was assigned to St. Viator’s in Chicago. She engaged in teaching high school students at St. Joseph's Academy in St. Louis in 1961. The following year, she received her master’s degree in music/organ from DePaul University in Chicago. In September of that same year (1962), she was the first person in the St. Louis province to receive the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship and traveled to Paris, France. For an entire school year (1962-63), she studied organ under Marcel Dupre’ at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, France. She was accompanied by Sister Jane Hassett who was working on her doctorate in history.
Sister Mary returned from France and taught music at St. Teresa's Academy in Kansas City for a year. In 1964, she began a 25-year ministry at Fontbonne College (now University). In 1989, when her parents’ health deteriorated, she returned home to Peoria to care for them. While there, she also taught private piano and organ lessons as her time allowed. After both of her parents died in 1996, she spent time clearing out the family home. She decided to stay in Peoria, where she lived with her CSJ sisters. She taught private music lessons and was organist at a few parishes: St. Jude, Holy Family, and St. Bernard (her home parish).
S. Mary moved to Nazareth Living Center in St. Louis in 2012. “I have to say that I have so much to be thankful for. ... I just love our community. It’s been just wonderful years; they really have been. I have so much to thank the Lord for.”
By Sister Helen Oates