Sister Margaret Norris, shown volunteering at Providence Food Pantry in West Terre Haute.
Photo provided
The journey began in southwestern Indiana, in a community where Sisters of Providence taught in local schools, and a number of little girls were inspired to someday enter religious life.
Margaret Norris was one of them, and at age 18 she traveled about 100 miles north toward Terre Haute, to join the Sisters of Providence at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods. This month marks the 75th anniversary of that milestone.
Over the decades she’s taught students in several communities, including at St. Michael Catholic School in Greenfield. These days, she lives on the sisters’ campus in Terre Haute and ministers in massage therapy.
At 93, and recovering from a spring surgery, she politely declined an interview. But she is remembered in the communities she served.
EARLY CONNECTIONS
Norris grew up in Jasper, one of seven children in her family. An older sister, Mildred, also joined the Sisters of Providence and became Sister Emileen.
According to the Sisters of Providence at St. Mary-of-the-Woods website, the community was only a couple of years old when a priest in the Jasper area asked for teachers. Sisters of Providence would continue to teach in Jasper for the next 160 years. Norris’ first-grade teacher, for example, was a Sister of Providence.
Norris graduated in 1949 from Jasper High School, where she was an honor roll student. About eight weeks later, she and her parents made the journey to St. Mary-of-the-Woods. She entered the Congregation on July 22, 1949, and was given the name Sister Marie Angeline.
In a few years, she would graduate from Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College with a bachelor’s degree in education.
TEACHING IN GREENFIELD
Norris taught in Evansville early in her career. She was later a teacher and principal of St. Michael School in Greenfield from 1965-1969. Pages of past Daily Reporters offer glimpses of “Sister Marie Angeline” and her work here nearly 60 years ago: recognizing science fair and spelling bee participants, and “testing” a swing that was part of the decor for a fundraiser.
There were a number of sisters who taught at St. Michael School over the years, living in a house across the street. In 2023, Sister Grace Marie Meehan marked her own 75-year milestone. Now 94, she was principal at St. Michael from 1969-1972.
And the year Norris left St. Michael, Sister Helen Therese Conway began teaching there; during her 18 years in Greenfield, she later became principal. Conway died in April 2020 in Terre Haute after 72 years of ministry.
RETURNING TO JASPER
Norris next taught in Jasper — at Tenth Street School from 1969-78, at Jasper Middle School from 1978-1983 and at Fifth Street School from 1983-2001.
She earned a master’s degree in education from Indiana University in 1970. She helped coach a community swim team, having enjoyed the sport in her own childhood. In her late forties, she took up running after the blizzard of 1978 and entered a 1979 New Year’s Eve “fun run.”
There were other changes. After the Vatican II conference in the 1960s, sisters could revert to their birth name if they wished. Norris did and was then known as Sister Margaret.
Also, while photos in Greenfield show her wearing the traditional habit — the long black dress and head covering of a nun — a 1974 photo in The Dubois County Daily Herald shows her wearing a turtleneck sweater and slacks in the classroom.
LONG FRIENDSHIPS
Being in Jasper again allowed her to rekindle her friendship with a childhood neighbor and classmate, Bernadine Mehringer Meyer.
“As Sr. Margaret trained in reflexology after retirement, she gave my mom many foot massages to alleviate some of her foot pain,” Meyer’s daughter Lynne Bohnert wrote in an email. “I believe she also used her knowledge of reflexology to benefit some of the Sisters of Providence when she returned to St. Mary-of-the-Woods.”
THE EXTRA MILE
Meanwhile, Norris continued to excel in races she entered, winning the overall women’s division of a local 5K in Jasper. Pages of the Herald from years past detail the successes. She went on to run 10Ks and marathons, often winning or placing in her 50+ age group at larger competitions.
She ran in her first marathon in Louisville in late 1982, beat the meet record for her age group by an hour and 20 minutes, and qualified for the 1983 Boston Marathon. She finished the Boston course in just under 4 hours.
Norris gave race T-shirts to her students at Christmas. At the end of the school year, “Sr. Margaret would share these trophies with her students,” Bohnert wrote, “who were so excited to receive a trophy!”
In a 1982 interview with the Herald, Norris said her daily runs offered time to think.
“If I have something on my mind, if there’s tension, I have time to think it out, to sort it out,” she said then. “Some of my best thoughts and inspirations have come during that running time. …
“I like the outdoors, and it’s a time I can relate to nature and to God very closely.”
Even after retiring from teaching and moving back to St. Mary-of-the-Woods, Norris has been known to bike or walk frequently. She was featured in a 2015 article on the congregation’s website about sisters who avidly exercise.
‘JUST YOUR PRESENCE’
Bohnert said Norris’ education career has had long impact. She taught with Norris at Fifth Street School. She remembers Norris vacationing in New Zealand one summer, visiting schools there and being impressed by their whole language method of teaching reading and writing.
“She was excited to share this method of teaching language arts with her fellow teachers,” Bohnert wrote. “She immersed her first grade students in this whole language reading and writing program encouraging many lifelong readers. My daughter was in her class in 1992, and her children still read some of the books Molly and her classmates wrote.”
In a 1992 interview with The Herald, for a story about 150 years of Sisters of Providence educators in Jasper, Norris said it was important to always acknowledge her students whenever she saw them in or out of school.
“They know that you are there and interested in them. It’s not just the classroom. Just your presence is the big thing or the biggest difference.”
