Oral history: Sister Ann Sullivan

What if the world is holding its breath — waiting for you to take the place that only you can fill?

– David Whyte

“We had an old bright yellow Minneapolis Moline tractor with a hand clutch. We’d sit in Dad’s lap or stand on the side bar when he was hauling hog sheds between pastures to ensure all livestock on our farm was on fresh grass or alfalfa or doing other farm jobs.  He’d stop at a gate, get off, open it. ‘You’re old enough to do this’, he’d say, and would give directions on how to push the hand clutch and drive it through. We did! We thought we were great stuff. We were 7 or 8 years old.”

Galesburg girl

Ann Therese Sullivan entered the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods community in 1964. She came from Galesburg, Illinois, from an Illinois Sesquicentennial Farm that had been in the Sullivan family since 1856 when her great-grandfather arrived from Ireland.

Her grandparents had grown up across the road from each other, married, and combined their two farms into 360 acres. That was the farm her father worked with the help of his wife, five kids, and two Percheron horses, Molly and Mike, who pulled the seeder.

Founded by Presbyterians who founded Knox College, Galesburg claims Carl Sandburg, and the reputation of a city that was at the forefront of abolitionism, the Underground Railroad, and the first anti-slavery society in the state of Illinois, a city where ‘a runaway slave was safe on the streets’.

“I’m not Irish because I was born in Ireland. I’m Irish because Ireland was born in me.”

An Irish saying

A ‘Love of the Land’

“I didn’t know priests didn’t have the Irish brogue until I was 12.”

A farm kid. Ann was raised with a love of the land. Her mother, Margaret, was the second oldest of 10 children, and three of Ann’s uncles farmed together. Ann’s summers were spent visiting and helping with family who had been involved with the land their whole lives.

Her father, John Sullivan, her primary inspiration, understood the sacredness of the land. He cherished it.

The blood memory and wisdom of Irish ancestors is strong regarding the land and the 1845 Great Famine that resulted in 1.3 million Irish deaths, and another million forced to leave Ireland and settle elsewhere. Irish settled on farmland like Ann’s family did, just north of Galesburg; many were related; Irish Lane was nearby. The influence was strong.

Ann has traveled to her great-grandfather’s homeland of Ireland several times to visit, to teach, staying with a family in a cottage warmed by peat. She loved it. She’s Irish; it was born in her.

Family farm

Ann is the oldest of five children. Two sisters and a brother – Becky, Julie, and Tim – are living in Galesburg; her baby sister Patricia passed away six years ago. The family farm is still the family farm. Ann has nieces and nephews from coast to coast, and she visits family often, especially on holidays. Family is a gift.

A farm kid. “Dad had the usual farm equipment and the unusual equipment of a horse-drawn seeder pulled by our two huge and beautiful Percherons, because horses didn’t damage the ground like commercial equipment did. Dad had grown up farming with horses. He worked our 360 acres farm by himself. He didn’t buy the new equipment until he absolutely needed it. Dad was very frugal except with my mother. Whatever she needed or wanted he was happy to provide for her.”

Ann’s parents, John and Margaret Sullivan, lived into their 90’s on the farm. Ann’s 4-year-old niece Katie described their working relationship like this: “I get it, Grandma, you are the boss of the house, and Grandpa is the boss outside the house.” Ann agrees!

A farm kid. “We thought we had come up in the world when we could take a coffee can and keep the seeder filled. We thought we were really, really important. Us, behind the horse! If my mother ever knew some of what we did …”

“The Divine communicates to us primarily through the language of the natural world. Not to hear the natural world is not to hear the Divine.”

– Thomas Berry

Providing the ‘Bedrock’

Sister Ann Sullivan talks with delight about her childhood. Little did John and Margaret Sullivan suspect in those early years that they were providing the bedrock their daughter Ann would bring full circle as a Sister of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods.

The Sullivans raised sheep and hogs. “Dad was an Illinois Master Herdsman of the year several times for the sheep. Some mornings we’d wake up and hear little lambs crying in the basement; Dad had brought them into the house near the furnace to get warm. Or little pigs squealing. We’d jump right out of bed and run down to the furnace room. Sometimes we got to bottle feed the babies.”

A farm kid. In 4-H, the Sullivan kids showed sheep, hogs, and beef. Showing 4-H animals is months of work every morning and every evening: charting your animal, grooming them, keeping their stall mucked out, watching them grow, and writing it all down in your 4-H Record Book.

That culminates with you in a ring with just a livestock cane and a haltered animal that might weigh 1,000 lbs. The judge is watching you and everyone else, and your job is to show the best side of your animal to the judge … and you know the best side because you’ve groomed them and bathed them and taught them to rely on you in the ring with the judge and the other 4-H’ers.

Love of animals

Sullivans didn’t raise cattle, so Ann’s dad would get calves from someone else for them to show at the fair. At the end of every 4-H show is the livestock auction, and someone buys your animal, usually for meat. That was tough. “When you spend nine months with an animal that meets you at the door morning and night when you go out there, licking your hand when you go to feed, you really love them! I was in tears, thinking, ‘he trusted me! I put him in the sale!’”

So, John Sullivan suggested to his daughter that maybe it wasn’t a good idea for her to have a calf because she loved them so much. “I know!”, Ann replied. “And I just sent him off to be killed!” To top it off, a friend of the family bought him. “So I didn’t eat meat at their house for sure!” Nor does Sister Ann Sullivan eat lamb because once you’ve held them and bottle fed them you can’t. Occasionally these days beef will be on her menu, but not usually pork, and never lamb!

A ‘regular’ family

The Sullivans were a regular Irish Catholic family. They attended 8 a.m. Mass, often had a big breakfast of pancakes and little smokies afterwards that Margaret Sullivan made. At Christmas, Ann’s mom would say ‘this big family ought to be together at home tonight, not at church, because this is where God is tonight’. And Ann is pretty sure she was right.

A farm kid. “Dad had an old Studebaker truck. Dad was combining oats by himself, and instead of having to leave the truck at the end of the field, run the combine, and go get the truck to empty grain into it, he thought Becky and I were old enough to drive it. We were eight and nine years old. Becky steered while I put my foot on the gas, and between us we could do it!

So, we’d drive the truck up close to the combine in the field and stop so Dad could drive it under the spout. He’d go on combining from there and we’d watch for him. He’d signal he was ready, and we’d drive it up to him again. We thought we were so important! I don’t think we ever shifted gears. If mother had known … well, she may have known more than she let on.” Maybe so. Margaret had been a farm kid, too.

Working together

Ann was learning how to keep records, work as a family, understand the seasons, appreciate the wonder Creation has provided, share her projects with groups, explain reasoning to judges in the ring, value preservation of the land. She could hoe and weed and drive tractors and trucks from an early age. She listened and observed.

A farm kid. There are no vacations on a grain and livestock farm, or they are rare. The first time the Sullivans went on a vacation it was to Saint Mary-of-the-Woods. Ann’s cousins were at the Woods – Sisters Nancy, Carol, and Lucy Nolan. Lucy and Carol were in a concert at the Woods where there was a big orchestra. Ann was in eighth grade at the time and no one in her family had been to the Woods. The Nolan sisters’ mother and Ann’s father were first cousins. They were raised a half mile from each other, and were particularly close; so, John Sullivan thought the family should go to the concert.

“Place yourself gently into the hands of Providence.”

– Saint Mother Theodore Guerin

Entering the novitiate

“Oh, my gosh!” That was Ann’s first reaction when she saw the whole campus. Providence beckoning! They returned when Nancy took her first vows.

The Sullivans were graduates of Immaculate Heart of Mary Elementary and Corpus Christi or Costa High School, taught by the Sisters of Providence. Ann really gave little thought to the Sisters of Providence community, other than she had Sister Jean Fuqua for math her freshman year. “The first time around,” Ann noted wryly. “She’s tried twice to teach me math. She was a wonderful teacher!”

Sister Jean

Sister Jean Fuqua brought the girls from school to Saint Mary-of-the-Woods if they wanted to tour the campus. There was no pull for Ann then. The pull would come later. Sister Helen Rose, ‘a fabulous teacher,’ and Sister Jean Fuqua, once again, (“I did pass geometry.”) and Sister Joyce Brophy, her eighth grade teacher, all made an impression with Ann in high school. “I liked Sister Jean a lot. She was an example of community life, and she was the youngest in the group in our high school. I thought about Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College (SMWC) longer than I thought about the novitiate.”

Ann did enter the novitiate in 1964 right after graduation from Corpus Christi High School. Was her family supportive? Yes, at least when she was around.

“My mother, whom we never saw cry, cried when I left because she didn’t think I’d be home again. You could only come when parents were sick or died, not both. There were no home visits.

“Mom’s mother said, ‘I can’t believe she’s doing this, she’s such a family-oriented person’. And I thought the same thing: why am I doing this when my first value is my family? I still don’t know the answer to that.”

A time of change

Ann Therese Sullivan became Sister John Margaret. She entered the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods community at a time when Sisters would remain at the Woods for five years to complete their degrees. In her senior year her routine in the community was to attend an early morning class at the college, go to the Village to teach first and second graders for a half day, and return for afternoon classes at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College. During those five years she changed her name twice, became Sister Ann, had a postulant outfit, was a canonical white-veiled novice, scholastic, black-veiled professed sister, and a year of study in the habits and juniorate. Because she entered in 1964 in the years of Vatican II, she benefited from the fact that Sisters were the change-makers. By her fifth year she no longer wore the habit and took off the veil.

What is right for me?

Did she ever re-evaluate her vocation? “It was hard when many of my friends were leaving in the late 60s and 70s. We went from 60 to 20 in my group. Most of the people I was close to left, and I thought ‘what’s wrong with me that I’m still here?’ I actually did want to leave at times but I just couldn’t do it. It didn’t feel right for me. It felt right for them and for many of them I think it was right; there are a few who are still part of us, a big part of us, but they’ve done a lot of good wherever they were.”

Ann’s heavy influences regarding education and regarding the land came from home and from Saint Mother Theodore Guerin. From the beginning, Mother Theodore established schools for girls, overcame the discounting of women in the Indiana wilderness, and treasured the land. “Mother Theodore Guerin was so connected to the natural world. Her whole presence was respectful.”

“… for you will see many things in new lights if you give the Holy Spirit free access to your minds and hearts.”

– Saint Mother Theodore Guerin

On to teaching

In 1969 Sister Ann Therese Sullivan received her education degree from SMWC and began teaching at Immaculate Conception School in Tulsa, OK. She had a wonderful principal, Sister Jean Michael, and a challenging pastor whose erratic and threatening behavior made life difficult for the community of sisters.

Luckily the Benedictine Sisters nearby took care of them, taking them to the grocery, and other places during those times when their car was removed by the pastor. One morning after a particularly stressful experience, Ann picked up the phone and called her Provincial Superiors, letting them know the extent of concerns.

They came quickly, and the situation was made tolerable until the end of the school year. Although Ann was the youngest member of that community in Tulsa, she took the steps she knew needed to be taken to protect and care for her ‘family’ there, because her sense of family is strong, and the role of ‘youngest’ had no meaning for her.  

The next assignment was teaching at her home Parish in Galesburg: Immaculate Heart and Costa Catholic. “It was a fabulous house, a great faculty, a young faculty in both the grade and high schools! Joyce Brophy was principal at Immaculate Heart; Anne Marita Wynne at St. Joseph Academy. After Costa High School closed, two grade schools merged to form Costa Catholic High School. It was a great community during those years. We worked very hard, and accomplished more than we knew we could.”  It was a big job. Lots needed done. Great things were accomplished.

“Love the children first, and then teach them.”

– Saint Mother Theodore Guerin

Wonderful ‘opportunities’

Ann has had wonderful opportunities for an education, opportunities that have led to challenging and very satisfying ministries. Her teaching education led to a position as first grade teacher at St. Mary-of-the-Woods Parish School, followed by middle grades in Tulsa and then a return to Galesburg with junior high students.

While teaching junior high, Ann realized that there were student family issues beyond her training to effectively deal with. When asked to further her studies, she chose school psychology but soon realized that school psych was more tests and measurements and not what she needed to help students and families.

She switched to counseling psych. Ann used those skills at Spoon River Health Community Mental Health Center as a counselor. After two years on the counseling team, Ann was offered a position in Henry County to help develop and grow a community mental health center in a large, predominantly rural county.

That Henry County clinic grew to include offices in Cambridge, Kewanee, and Geneseo hospitals. A three-million-dollar grant to the clinic made day treatment programs, emergency services, elderly services, and addiction services available. Ann continued to see clients even as Director, particularly families and adolescents.

Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College

While Director of Henry County’s Spoon River Center, Ann enrolled in the master’s program in Pastoral Theology at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College. And another call came for mission. Suzanne Daily, SP, Vice-President for Academic Affairs at SMWC, who had previously asked Ann if she could leave Spoon River to come to the college, called once again to ask if Ann was at a point she could leave, to become part of the Psychology and Theology departments. “For some reason I said yes. When I hung up I said to myself, ‘What have I done?’”

Sister Ann became the Chair of the Psychology, Theology, and Philosophy Department at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College. Ann stayed at SMWC until the White Violet Center vision came to fruition.

“Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

– Mary Oliver

A new adventure

Back at the Woods, Ann lived at Rosary Hill. “There were creeks on each side of the fields at Rosary Hill. The farmers who worked our land used chemicals that were going into our land and our water that flows into our water table that provides water for the Woods.

One evening Nancy Nolan (then General Superior) and Ann were talking on the porch. Ann voiced her concerns about the land and chemicals and water once again. Nancy told Ann, “Put it on paper and give it to me and tell me what we could do.”

So Ann wrote a little 1-page proposal. The Chapter decisions were already determined and in the hands of committees who didn’t see this proposal as part of their work. When the next annual meeting rolled around, a Sister of Providence from The Women of Providence spoke on the philosophy of environmental justice. At the same time, Ann’s local government unit (LGU) was well aware of the dream of making an eco-justice center a reality at the Woods. That dream moved closer to reality when all but one of the Sisters was willing to move ahead with this new eco-justice adventure.

“On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen; all day and all night they will never keep silent.”

Isaiah 62:6

A new ministry is born

A farm kid. Sister Ann Sullivan had seen the warning. She knew at an early age that the land was sacred and had to be cared for. And she was observant. From the age of six, seven, eight … she was watching her dad. Watching how he cared for the land.

‘Watching when he needed her to fill the seeder, drive the tractor through the gate, watching for the signal to pull the truck to the combine. She watched the beef and sheep and hogs she showed in 4-H, recording everything about them in an extensive record book. Providence had been preparing her for this her entire life, and she had come full circle. She had seen what was happening; she was the herald. She knew — hoped — the Community was ready.

In 1993 at the Sisters of Providence International Assembly, with the presentation on the Theology of the Universe, the Theology of God, Sister Judy Shanahan was determined something was going to happen with the proposal Ann had developed. Sister Ann’s LGU fanned out to nearly every table to discuss actions to be taken regarding the environmental project. The response was nearly unanimous, indicated by a show of squares of colored cardboard: one yellow, the rest green, no red. Do it.

Caring for Earth

Thus began planning sessions with area farmers, Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College, Sisters of Providence, and Purdue University. It was an exciting time! The Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods own hundreds of acres. The land has grown food since before Mother Theodore arrived and Mother Theodore continued to plant and nurture the land. It has sustained hundreds and hundreds of women in the community, and most have stories of picking and peeling tomatoes in the cannery, picking strawberries and other fruits and vegetables “in silence, in the sun, clothed in yards of serge”. Now, land that had always produced abundance was being farmed in a manner that would need to adjust and conform to a new way of farming that looked a lot like the old way. There was skepticism, of course, but a willingness to try.

A large committee worked on how organic farming and caring for the land Providence had provided to the community would proceed. The high excitement carried the committee through myriad tasks and decisions. Ann spent a week at Genesis Farm in New Jersey with Sister Miriam MacGillis. Genesis Farm and Earth Literacy, based on the works of Thomas Berry, and of Brian Swimme, fed Miram MacGillis’ passion and fed Ann’s. She had coffee with Thomas Berry. The Irish poet David Whyte was there. It was immersion into a philosophy and belief about the universe and Earth and the Creator that matched Ann’s own: honoring the land God gave to us to care for.

“We lose our souls if we lose the experience of the forest, the butterflies, the song of the birds, if we can’t see the stars at night.”

– Thomas Berry

Honoring the land

It wasn’t the easiest thing to accomplish a switch to returning to honoring the land by taking care of it. “People thought we were crazy. Our young farmers who had farmed our land, this was very new to them; they had been very conventional: add fertilizer, spray for bugs, spray from airplanes. ‘You won’t have any yield’, they said. Yes, they were assured, if we follow the practices then the third or fourth year we will have yield.”

Did you lose any farmers who didn’t want to change their practice? “No. They were willing to try it. They lived nearby, their families grew up with us. They thought we were crazy but agreed to do what we wanted them to do. Even some who purchased some of the land continued the practice.”

Ann had recognized early in the process that one person could not successfully proceed with the day-to-day development and operation of the White Violet Center for Eco-Justice (WVC). She called on Sister Jean Fuqua, who loves the outdoors and is a computer math person, but who was teaching computer classes at the college. Jean’s response was something like, ‘Well, I can’t full-time. I need to teach my computer classes, can I do it half-time?’ Ann replied, “No. It’s all or nothing. I need help and I need you here. Full-time.” Jean joined her.

“When you are ready, the teacher will appear.”

– Rumi

Adding the Alpacas

Many things needed to be decided, including animals. Beef is very hard on land. Buffalo isn’t, but is it safe for all ages? They needed an animal that would be no-kill. (Remember that 4-H calf?) As Providence would have it, Sister Ann Sullivan broke her foot and during recovery received a magazine she had never seen before. On the front of it? Alpacas! Inside, their qualities were enumerated – safe for all ages pre-school to elders, no-kill, valuable. A breeding program might be a possibility. The belief is strong that Mother Theodore delivered that magazine herself.

Ann called Sister Jean Fuqua to come discuss the possibility. They agreed to explore it. Indiana alpaca owners were very positive and encouraging. They traveled to Madison, Wisconsin, to see a show, be around alpacas, and talk to more owners. Alpacas were very expensive.

Prior to 1980 they had only lived in zoos in North America, so they were scarce. And the ones of quality could not be bought for less than $25,000. Once again Providence intervened with money from a generous donor and the alpaca search began in earnest.

Building a herd

Sisters Ann and Jean traveled to Iowa City to look at some alpacas for sale. When they returned home the owners sent a video of the ones they had seen on their trip. As they watched, they noticed an alpaca not for sale prancing around behind the ones that were for sale. They were taken with her. Providence. Not for sale soon became for sale, and the first alpaca, Finesse, was purchased. White Violet Center was in the alpaca business!

Finesse was the grand dam of the herd, the matriarch. She was beautiful, stoic, regal. Her white-on-beige mixed fiber is carried through her progeny to this day at WVC. She was pure Peruvian and emerged as a leader in whatever herd she was a member of. The alpacas have provided years of joy for anyone venturing onto the grounds and near the herd. Crias year after year. Alpacas pronging and playing king-of-the-hill.

“Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it, and whispers, ‘grow, grow.'”

– The Talmud

White Violet Center

White Violet Center for Ejo-Justice has a USDA Certified Organic Garden. Produce is grown on five acres. There is a Farm Store, alpaca fiber arts, chickens and eggs, and WVC is a fixture at the Terre Haute farm market during the season. In 2023 two tons, or 4,000 pounds of fresh produce was provided to local food banks in addition to supplying fresh produce to the Sisters of Providence community.

The goal in 2024 is to produce five tons, or 10,000 pounds of fresh produce to provide to local food banks. Just recently in July, WVC remarked that they had cabbage, zucchini, collard greens, kale, leeks, beets, cucamelons, hot peppers, shishito peppers, sweet peppers, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, slicing tomatoes, potatoes, onions, garlic, strawberries, eggplant, farm fresh eggs, flowers, pestos, soups, basil garlic salt. The list is seemingly endless. Thousands of people have visited and enjoyed WVC since its inception.

“We have gone out several times this summer to gather simples and linden blossoms, etc. In each excursion we discover something marvelous, beautiful, and useful in the magnificent forests of Indiana.”

– Saint Mother Theodore Guerin

The wonder of God

White Violet Center for Eco-Justice reveres and protects all the land. There is forest on the property which is protected. Three hermitages — Luking, Bailly, and Sullivan — are part of WVC, and the history of their construction adheres to preservation. They border on St. Joseph Lake at the edge of the forest. The synonyms for hermitage are cloister, abbey, monastery.

The quiet of the lake and the edge of trees invite deer to come near; ground hogs, squirrels, geese, ducks, turkey, a skunk now and then. These residents of the earth we share appear early morning and in the evening, sometimes coming within mere yards of the hermitages. It would not be unusual to see a herd of deer pass out of the woods nearby. The wonder of God and creation, of experiencing a bit of what Saint Mother Theodore experienced, greets you everywhere you turn.

Sister Ann Sullivan remained 13 years as the Director of White Violet Center for Eco-Justice. Ann said the name came directly from Mother Theodore, and that in the library the violets were carved into the main, huge bookcase. Sister Joann Quinkert and I ventured into the library to see the violets one day. They are right there where Ann said they were.

“The land is healed. It is lush. Thank God for the people who are there keeping the soil healthy.”

In 2008 when Sister Ann Sullivan handed over the reins of WVC to a new director, Sister Marie McCarthy honored her with these words: “Because of you, Ann, we see the world differently. Because of you, we think differently. Because of you, we ask different questions. You have transformed the consciousness of people.”

“I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.”

– George Bernard Shaw

Words of Wisdom

What would Sister Ann Sullivan say to someone considering becoming a member of a religious community? “Do your homework. Ask good questions. Understand your notion of religious life. Ask questions.”

What delights her? Her family, her friends, her dog Clancy, and the unit in healthcare and the wonderful people on the unit. She misses cooking her own food.

Words of wisdom? “It is what it is. Words of wisdom when you’re in circumstances you can’t change. I am where I am, people have limits, it is for me what it is right now.”

Helping others

Ann has consulted for and facilitated discussion with religious communities regarding transitioning out of existence. Her love for family, her understanding of community, her education and counseling skills are a blessing in a situation that is a reality for many. She worked with the Sisters of Saint Casimir for ten years as they transitioned from their Motherhouse. They called on her to meet with Sisters individually who might want to talk to her about their own personal life journey. She was available to work with groups regarding various topics. She accompanied them on the journey that Sister Immacula of the Sisters of Saint Casimir described in the Spring 2024 issue Journeys: “Today we have found rest …We have met the crossroads, walked the new and unknown paths, with deep faith, trust, and determination…”

Galesburg is her favorite mission. Family! Her enthusiasm when she recalls Galesburg is manifest. Even when she worked at the Mental Health Center, she was still in Galesburg. “My years there were wonderful years. In Cambridge, Illinois, when Spoon River Mental Health Center came into being I asked Sister Anne Marita when she retired if she would consider living with me and help with records at the Center; she agreed. Rosary Hill with Sister Anne Marita Wynne living there with me for many years was a joy! Later housemates were Nancy Nolan, Denise Wilkinson, Rosa Pan, and now Sister Joni Luna.”  It’s hard to find a place Ann Sullivan has not enjoyed her companions.

“The evening of a well-spent life brings its lamps with it.”

– Joubert

Still Busy

Sister Ann Sullivan is a delight to engage with. If you haven’t had a conversation with her lately, find her. She is a fount of wisdom, like so many of her community. And she can tell a story – ask about her days spent in the jail, or where she learned to swear. Look her up online, she’s been interviewed often. WVC is a crowning achievement in a life of achievements.

Although she’s been in the healthcare facility for three years due to a complicated fracture in her leg, she hasn’t stopped. She remains busy. Sister Ann had said that she didn’t know why she was leaving home to join the Sisters of Providence community since “my first value is my family.” But Sister Ann has created that family atmosphere she revered wherever she has gone since she left her own family to embark on a spiritual adventure with Providence in 1964 … Tulsa, Galesburg, Cambridge, Rosary Hill, Ireland, healthcare. Her advice – “It is what it is” — is a mantra for lighting your lamps, letting them shine for yourself and for others.

“Earth is so thick with divine possibility that it is a wonder we can walk anywhere without cracking our shins on altars.”

– Barbara Taylor Brown

A ‘Farm Kid’

A farm kid. Sister Ann Sullivan has been walking among the altars Providence has provided us on this Earth since she could get outside on the farm in Galesburg. A kid who noticed things. A kid who recognized her father’s love of the land, who felt the sacredness of holy ground when she first visited the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods and thought ‘Oh my gosh!’

It had touched her, and she would return just a few years later and devote her life to fulfilling that place that David Whyte talked about, the one that only she could fill. She has a gift and a talent that she used for her community in the classroom, the counseling office, administration, vision. “Thank God for the people,”  Ann said about those who have kept WVC going.

Thank God for Ann Sullivan, who has gifted us all with her vision, her wisdom, her spirituality and her devotion to take care of God’s gift of the Earth to us, on the same ground Saint Mother Theodore walked and revered and cared for. Thank God for Sister Ann Sullivan.