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Home » Archives for Sister Janet Gilligan
Story
Few would probably imagine Sister Suzanne running for public office, supervising an adult education program or traveling through South America on her last dollar.
Story
In every stage of the sisters’ trials in China, Aunt (or Grandma as she was later called) Kuo was there, walking to the markets every day, sending meals to the sisters in house arrest, sleeping on a cot in the room where the sisters took their meals.
Story
Now she spends her retirement years preparing food for shut-ins, working with the parish bereavement committee and tutoring students in English as a second language.
Story
She heard their stories of abuse, of problems with their children, of anxiety about their immigration status. Many of them needed professional counseling, but this was almost impossible for poor families who had no insurance and were struggling with English. Sister Patty came to see that her greatest missionary opportunity now was not in Africa, Peru or Taiwan, but in her own backyard.
Story
The original manuscripts of all the existing letters and journals, mostly in French, have been carefully preserved in the Sisters of Providence Archives. But these fragile pages have never been available to the public. Now, thanks to a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant from the Indiana State Library, digital representations of the personal letters of Saint Mother Theodore Guerin, along with transcriptions and translations, will be available sometime after July.
Sister Janet Gilligan is a volunteer in the Sisters of Providence Archives. A retired English professor, she enjoys her role as an archivist — answering queries, writing grants, and learning how to digitize collections.