A century and a quarter after arriving in the Chicago area with the intent to expand educational offerings, the La Grange Park based Sisters of St. Joseph recently had an opportunity to look back on a job well done.
Actually, there were lots of jobs in those 125 years, including founding Nazareth Academy in La Grange Park. But the group was congratulated June 10 on its English as a Second Language program by Plymouth Place Senior Living, a retirement complex in La Grange Park, which presented the Sisters with its Monarch Award.
Sr. Carol Crepeau, who began the teaching program 47 years ago with Sr. Mary Beth McDermott, said their involvement with the Teaching English to Advance Change program was coming to an end as Morton College and DuPage Literacy will be taking it over. That, she said, “is very good for all of us.”
“My position now is to watch and make sure that what we dreamed continues to happen,” she said.
Crepeau said the program started in 1978 as the “School on Wheels,” after the sisters bought a bus from the Arlington Heights Public Library. Before long, the bus had become too small for the program.
“We had too many teachers, so what we did then is we began to go and work in various libraries and Catholic schools,” she said. “I am so proud and happy and delighted, and the thing that is so wonderful is that now we have this partnership with Plymouth Place. … When you create something that is good for people, not only for people that want to learn English, but those who want to teach it — when it’s good and it’s mutual, it lasts.”
More than 50 people crowded into Plymouth Place’s 30 North restaurant for the celebration. Paddy Homan, Plymouth Place vice president of philanthropy and community affairs, said the ESL program at Plymouth Place was founded by the Sisters along with 15 residents who wanted to be able to communicate with staff members.
“We just want to thank them,” Homan said. “They stepped in here and saw a need through our residents. And our job here is to support our residents to reimagine what our mission is all about.”
Janet Matheny, a resident at Plymouth Place and retired teacher, was instrumental in bringing the ESL program to Plymouth Place.
“One of our residents said to me ‘I have trouble communicating with the housekeeper because she doesn’t speak English well,” she said. “So what can we do about it?”
Matheny called a friend who put her in touch with the Sisters of St. Joseph.
“From that point on, Teach came in and trained our residents to be tutors,” she said. “It’s an organization that is funded through grants. When COVID hit, they spaced us six feet apart, we wore our masks and in the Fall of ’21 we started tutoring our employees who wanted to improve their English skills.”
Many of the Plymouth Place staff that were in the Teach program were in attendance at the ceremony, including the first graduate of the school, Carlos Felix, who along with Jan Matheny presented the Monarch Award to Sr. Kathy Brazda of the Sisters of St. Joseph.
The Sisters of St. Joseph were originally based in New York state, had set up several schools there, and had come to the La Grange area with the intention of doing the same here.
But another group had already filled that role, so the Sisters were invited to join the St. Francis Xavier Parish in La Grange.
After noticing that Lyons Township High School had been doing an excellent job educating young men, the Sisters turned their attention to the young women of the area and in 1899 established Nazareth Academy.
Hank Beckman is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.