Sister Teresa Marie Eagan, CSJ
December 7, 1924 - February 1, 2023
A listening heart, a loving spirit, found joy in simple things
Theresa Rosaline was born on December 7, 1924, to Patrick and Marguerite (Franey) Eagan of St. Louis. About growing up during the Great Depression, she said: “Our lives were around the church and the school; those were the constants in our lives. Our social activities were around the family and the church.” She had Sisters of St. Joseph at St. Teresa School and Notre Dames at Roch High. Thoughts of her future during high school included: “What I wanted to be was indefinite, but I did not want to be a nun, that was a priority. I had other ambitions; I wanted to be on the stage.”
She entered the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet on September 15, 1943, was received into the novitiate on March 19, 1944, and given the name Teresa Maria. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish from Fontbonne College, St. Louis (1954) and a master’s degree in Library Science from Rosary College, River Forest, Illinois (1969).
Her teaching ministry began in St. Louis at Notre Dame de Lourdes, Wellston, Missouri (1946), followed by intermediate and junior high classes at St. Mary in Bridgeton (1952). S. Teresa then taught at Sacred Heart, Shawano, Wisconsin (1956), and later at Redemptorist High, Kansas City, Missouri (1959-1968) — “a very wonderful ten years.” Realizing that her hearing was becoming a problem for continuing classroom teaching, she visited a specialist. The doctor told her that not only was she losing her hearing but would probably lose her ability to speak. Fortunately, he was not totally correct in his diagnosis. In 1968 she enrolled at Rosary College, Chicago, to study library science. Her next assignment was librarian at St. Francis de Sales, Denver (1969). “It was very good, and the people were very nice. The pastor was very saintly. They were some of the nicest people I’ve ever met.” She was a librarian at Reicher Catholic High, Waco, Texas, and then at St. Teresa's Academy, Kansas City.
S. Teresa returned to St. Louis (1976), accepting the position as the assistant archivist for the province. In 1985, the Carondelet Community Betterment Federation hired her as records manager. Then, in 1986, S. Teresa became the assistant archivist for the Catholic Center in St. Louis. Finally, she was assistant archivist for the Archdiocesan Archives (1992). Retiring in 2001, she continued to volunteer wherever she saw a need: Cardinal Ritter Senior Services, her parish and also in her apartment building. “I always felt ever since I moved in here that my job was the archives, but my ministry is in the apartment building.”
A few other thoughts from S. Teresa: It has been my experience, as most sisters don’t realize, that it [oral history] is important because we are all part of the whole, and it is important that we know what the ordinary sister is doing. ... That is where the life is lived.
She moved to Nazareth Living Center in 2019.
By Sister Helen Oates