[This article about Sister Mary Fides was transcribed from the Hobbs Flare issue of March 1, 1984. It was written by Patricia Breyman.]
This week’s old timer is 80 years old, is devoted, compassionate, courageous, loving, caring — all of these plus dedication personified. However, what this reporter also quickly recognized in her beautiful face is happiness, contentment, laugh lines from a marvelous sense of humor, warmth. tenderness, eyes alive and alight with expectation, and a readiness for helpful escapades that has about worn out her guardian angel!
She is sister Mary Fides, Dominican Order, serving St. Helena’s Catholic Church in Hobbs in a full-time and very active position as Director of Religious Education.
She was born as Agnes Cecelia Gough on June 22. 1903 to George Joseph Gough and Ophelia (Pickard) Gough. Her father was from Kentucky and her mother from southern Illinois. They met at a small Baptist College in Illinois, married. and Agnes Cecelia was born into a mixed marriage home – half Catholic and half Baptist. It later became an all Catholic marriage and home. They lived in Uniontown, Kentucky.
CATHOLIC/YANKEE
The family moved from Uniontown to Oceola, Arkansas, smack in the middle of the Bible-belt and into a southern stronghold. Young Cecelia found herself as she put it, with two strikes against her she was Catholic and a “damnyankee” to boot.
She was timid and shy but at seven, assured her mother she knew the way to the home of an aunt and uncle in Oceola and was perfectly capable of walking there alone. She didn’t get far from home when she realized she was hopelessly lost. Lost to such an extent she could not find the home of the relatives nor could she find her own home again. She finally gathered her courage, marched up to the front door of the nearest home, and asked for help. It was the Methodist parsonage and the minister’s daughter walked her around and up and down streets until she recognized her own home. She said she always had respect for people of other faiths and the memory of that event only strengthened that respect.
Agnes Cecelia attended public schools until she was a junior in high school. Her mother was afraid she would become “wild” so she sent her to St. Agnes Academy in Memphis, about 60 miles away. The good sister was quick to assure she definitely was not “wild” and has no idea what criteria her mother used to arrive at that fear.
SISTERHOOD REJECTED
She said the last thing on her mind was to enter religious training in any form, much less to become a nun. When asked by friends and family if she considered that as an avocation, her stock answer was ”No, I am not about to wear all those clothes.”
She said “the Lord finally had enough of her foolishness and moved her to the decision to enter training.” Soon after she finished high school, she entered the Mother House at Bardstown, Kentucky to train as a Sister of Dominican Order.
Dominican Sisterhood was founded as a teaching order in 1822. Dominican priests working in the area, started a school for boys (in those days, boys and girls were educated from separate accommodations. They quickly saw the need for sisters to teach the girls. An appeal was soon made from the pulpit on a Sunday morning and eight young ladies answered the call.
The father of one of the eight gave a parcel of land with a log cabin on it as the beginning of the Dominican Sisterhood, with the priests training the eight original young ladies. The first years were a hard struggle but they grew into an order with a magnificent Mother House that covers many acres and they are now one of the most active orders.
When Agnes Cecelia entered the Mother House in January of 1923 to begin training, the Mistress who accepted her had the list of names for the twelve young ladies in that class. Since Agnes Cecelia was first to arrive, she was given her choice of names. She chose Diana, but the Mistress said that had been spoken for; second choice was Mary Thomas, again that had been spoken for by one of the young ladies, because Mary was her mother’s name and Thomas was her father’s name; finally. Agnes Cecelia said, just give me Mary Fides, no one else would choose that anyway. She learned that Fides is Latin for Faith and has been happy with that choice since.
BEGINS TEACHING
After a year and a half, she was sent to the missions and taught at Matoon, Illinois. She spent her longest time – ten years – at St. Catharine of Siena in Memphis, Tennessee.
In between her years of teaching, Sister Fides found time to earn a bachelor degree and two masters. She attended De Paul University at Chicago and got her first degree, a B.S., in Chemistry in 1935. After teaching that subject for some time, she became interested in mathematics, went back to De Paul, built up her prerequisites, and got a masters in mathematics in 1940. She was asked later if she had any interest in home economics, and thought that would be an interesting field. She returned to school, this time to the University Of Wisconsin and got a masters in Home Economies in 1949.
Prior to the Vatican Council II in 1969, Sisters in the Dominican Order (and most other orders as well) were sent where their church felt they were needed – they had no choice.
After Vatican Council II, the late Pope John was said to have thrown open the window and declared the church needed fresh air. To begin this process, he asked the Orders to update themselves.
From that edict, came a gradual modernization “by degrees” of their habit and finally, the greatest change of all, permitting the Sisters to choose their field, the location, and to make their own contracts.
After the 1969 decision to leave regular teaching for religious education. Sister Fides went to Notre Dame Seminary at New Orleans, Louisiana for several summers to prepare herself for yet another branch of her profession.
NEBRASKA
Her first self-contracted job was at the Diocese of Grand Island, Nebraska where she had the entire western half of the State of Nebraska. While there, she got her first drivers license.
In 1973, she left Nebraska for the Diocese of Little Rock, Arkansas and her territory was the entire state of Arkansas. She visited 50 different parishes, some of them several times, where her primary work was in the field or teacher training in church, not in school. She was in Little Rock for three years and loved her work, but realized she was spreading herself thin. She decided to work for one Church so she could devote more time to her new profession. She chose West Memphis, Arkansas and went to work at St. Michael’s where she spent six happy years and made some dear friends. She visits there and Grand Island for vacations when she gets the chance.
In 1979, at the age of 76, she was all set for retirement because she crippled from arthritis and two minor falls. She had resigned from St. Michael’s where the congregation was furious with the pastor for accepting her resignation – the poor man asked them what was he to do other than accept it? Father John, now pastor at St. Helena’s, persuaded her to come to Carlsbad to the religious center and she agreed to if it was not teaching. She had served more than 40 years in that capacity and said times had changed so she did not want to enter that field again. Too, she accepted, because she thought this climate might help her arthritic knee.
HOBBS
She visited Hobbs several times while working at Carlsbad and when the opportunity came to work at St. Helena’s in religious education, she accepted. However. She’s retiring, again, come June of this year, and I am sure it will be with deep regret that this resignation is accepted.
She said religious education is very different from teaching in Catholic schools but that it is very satisfying work. She is responsible for retreats, discussion groups, preparations for confirmations, baptismal preparations, conducting classes on Sundays for approximately 230 children of Kindergarten through sixth grades. a variety of programs for junior and senior high school age, and the 5:30 Sunday Mass which is designated “youth mass.”
She teaches a sexual education class – careful never to the word “sex” as opposed to “sexual” and bases every statement on scripture. She seems to enjoy the reaction her appearance always brings when she enters this classroom – a nun and one who is 80 years old teaching sexual education!! She laughs to herself, not just for the fun of it, but in conjunction with her classes. She uses a book which she wrote. “My Sexuality – A gift of God” in these classes and feels it is helping some to combat the ideas these children and youth are getting from their peers, from television, and from the streets. She is distressed that they are missing the moral implications and stresses love in all that she teaches. She said they need dwell on the different kinds of love – love Of God, love of parents, love of friends, and romantic love.
This serene lady has many happy memories of her years of teaching and in religious education, among them taking a group of children to Little Rock to visit the Cathedral of St. Andrew where their Bishop, who knew the children were coming, spent extra time explaining each vestment and sacrament to the children. Later he met with them and gave Sister Fides money to treat them to lunch at McDonalds. He said they might have happy memories of the day if he, Bishop McDonald, sent them to McDonalds for lunch!
She still has contact with many of her former students and parishioners – one, Philip Wray from St. Michael’s had called the day of this interview to report success in his first real job.
CHURCH FAMILY
She said only recently, she was thinking how alone she was with most of her family gone, when she looked around at the huge church family she has and realized she was not alone and never would be.
She celebrated her golden jubilee in 1976 when friends sent her on a trip to Paris, Vienna, Belgium, Italy, Isle of Capri, and highlighted by a group audience with Pope Paul. She has traveled to Mexico City more recently for a pilgrimage and mass at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe celebrating the new diocese of New Mexico, headed by Bishop Ricardo Ramirez.
She reads incessantly, enjoys crafts such as crochet, making banners, and ojo de dios; she is doing for others – such as the wild trip at Christmas to drive the vehicle of another Sister to Tennessee and then fly home. Before long, the terrible winter blizzard conditions overtook them, she had three very close calls, but with God’s help (and that poor frazzled “guardian angel” watching over her) they arrived safely.
She relatively good health now except for a broken wrist she got the day before Thanksgiving, and it is still in a cast. For several years she was crippled to the point of having great difficulty in getting around until she came to Hobbs and Dr. Maldanado operated on her knee. He inserted a plastic one, and now walks without even a cane.
In facing her retirement, she says her one dream for religious education is training on an ungraded basis. She hates leaving without accomplishing this but hopes others will carry on the programs to that goal.
This serene lady’s only concession to “old age” (and even the mention of the word in conjunction with this active person seems sacrilegious) is sleeping late. She said she arose at 5 o’clock each morning for almost all her life but now sleeps “late.” Late to her is 7 o’clock at which time she arises, goes to her office for prayers, then Mass, and another day at work.
By Patricia Breyman
[Transcribed from Hobbs Flare, March 1, 1984.]
Old Lea County, N.M. 