At the end of the eulogy for Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt on Thursday, Sister Mary Ann Zollmann told the family and friends gathered that Loyola University’s beloved nun wanted people to know they shouldn’t grieve or be troubled.
Sister Jean, who died last week at age 106, was at peace, abiding in God’s love “in one of the many mansions in God’s house,” Zollmann relayed. And many in attendance at the funeral knew what that mansion looked like.
“Her mansion is a replica of her office on the first floor of Loyola’s Damen Student Center,” Zollmann said. “It has large, clear windows and a wide-open door through which she can see the residents of heaven, not passing by but lined up for a visit with her. The line literally stretches into eternity.”
The Madonna della Strada chapel on the shores of Lake Michigan was filled to capacity with people who sought out Sister Jean’s wisdom and light during her decades as a teacher, college administrator and men’s basketball team chaplain. Additional mourners watched the service via livestream.
Outside of the chapel where Sister Jean said she felt closest to God, pallbearers wearing maroon-and-yellow scarves over their black suits waited to bring in Sister Jean’s casket. Many of them had athletic department connections, including men’s basketball coach Drew Valentine, athletic director Steve Watson, former Loyola player and current assistant coach Keith Clemons and Ramblers Hall of Famer Allan Norville.
Later that group — joined by former Loyola and current Oklahoma coach Porter Moser and several former players — gathered at the front of a community reception, greeting each other with hugs and chatting. A cardboard cutout of Sister Jean, a pair of her maroon Nikes and her very own bobblehead looked out over the celebration.
“This reminds me of every time she had a birthday,” Valentine said. “Her birthday celebrations were here in Damen. We didn’t call it her birthday or birth week. It was her birth month.
“The bringing of people together and sharing stories and laughing and the sense of community and family, that’s what Sister was all about. Seeing everybody here today is a true representation of her and what this place meant to her.”
Zollmann’s eulogy spanned the 106 years of Sister Jean’s life, including when she prayed about her future as a third-grader: “Dear God, help me understand what I should do. But please tell me that I should be a BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary) sister.”
Zollmann touched on Sister Jean’s beginnings as an elementary school teacher in Chicago and Los Angeles, of which Sister Jean had said, “Feeling connected to my students was like oxygen to me.”
She spoke of how Sister Jean worked with students at Mundelein College to plan effective ways to protest injustice and how she revealed her desire for racial and gender equity, peace and an inclusive church. Zollmann told of how Sister Jean, serving at Mundelein and later Loyola, could sense when people were lonely or struggling and needed her kinship or prayers, calling her “a veritable presence of mighty kindness.”
And Zollmann recalled how Sister Jean started in the team chaplain role that decades later would bring her national sports fame.
“Jean and the Ramblers were made for each other, and eventually the whole world would know it,” Zollmann said. “Yet the electricity between Jean and the Ramblers was about more than a singular stellar season. It was about the perennial experience of exceptional human community.”
Moser, the coach of Loyola’s 2018 Final Four team when Sister Jean became a media darling for her support of the team, considered her a friend and confidante. In his early years, they spoke together of growing the program by building around great people.
Later, when he received interest from other teams about a career move, he often would confide only in Sister Jean about the possibilities, asking for her prayers and guidance.
When he finally decided to leave for Oklahoma, she hugged him and said, “I’m just so happy for you and grateful we’re friends.”
“There was something said in the homily: ‘In her whole career, she had many titles, but her favorite one was a friend to many,’” Moser said. “And I’m just blessed here to be not the former head coach, but just to be one of those many.”
Many of Sister Jean’s basketball friends shared their favorite memories as they gathered at the reception afterward.
Moser showed off one of his favorite photos of him in a golf cart and Sister Jean in a motorized cart. She had called Moser one day to tell him she wanted to practice getting around in the cart. He met her with his golf cart and the pair — unbeknownst to most — raced each other around campus before going into the gym together.
“She was so competitive, she didn’t want to not be good on that cart,” Moser said.
Valentine spoke of how, during his first season as head coach, Sister Jean greeted him and his then-baby daughter in the hallway of their hotel before the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament. Sister Jean took one look at his daughter and said, “Let me see that baby!” They snapped a photo together before Valentine and the Ramblers went off to win the tournament.
And Clemons remembered what she meant to players before games.
“Some of my most fond memories were pregame prayers because there are a lot of emotions, a lot of tensions approaching when it’s game time,” Clemons said. “But seeing her giving her blessing of the hand, her calm presence, her scouting reports, her prayers, it was always like, ‘We got this.’”
Sister Jean’s influence went beyond the men’s basketball team.
In his homily, Rev. Michael Garanzini said Sister Jean used to walk on campus, greeting students by name: “Colleen, did you call your mother? Sean, did you finish your paper?” He called Sister Jean “a consummate gossipist.”
“I mean gossip in the nicest sense of the term,” Garanzini said. “Those who were close to her knew she knew more than anyone else on campus.”
She often relayed that information to Garanzini with the hope he could make a difference where it was needed.
That service and kindness was what many celebrated Thursday in Sister Jean’s send-off. Zollmann called her “the heartbeat of God’s friendship at the heart of Loyola.”
“Everybody says guardian angel or biggest fan, biggest cheerleader,” Valentine said. “She’s just a symbol of what we want this place to be and how we want all of our young men to be — selfless, always giving time to others, living their life for others — but having a great pride in the place that you’re at.”