By Jeff LaLiberte - Barry University

MIAMI | There were many surprises along the way, but the sight of 100 year-old Sister Maura Phillips playing the piano and singing as if she were at Carnegie Hall was perhaps the most unexpected delight.

Barry University assistant professors Connie Hicks and Adam Dean witnessed that and much more over the past three years as they documented some of Barry’s rich history, particularly as it pertains to the Adrian Dominican Sisters.

Hicks, who had a distinguished career as a journalist for Miami’s ABC television affiliate before coming to Barry, was the perfect choice to interview the sisters.

And Dean, whose specialty is new media production, was the obvious selection to film the interviews for what is intended to be a five-minute video history. The interviews will also be digitally archived and indexed at Barry.

The duo ended up taking two trips to Adrian, Michigan, site of the Dominican sisters’ motherhouse.

They interviewed 21 sisters, both in Adrian and at Barry, and what they found were 21 extraordinary women — some of whom may be elderly chronologically but not in their ideas or their energy.

“These are very progressive, forward-thinking women,” Hicks said of the sisters she met while working the project that was funded by a grant from the Adrian Dominican Sisters. “They come from all walks of life — some from families who discouraged them from becoming sisters and others who encouraged them.”

“They all had great senses of humor. They would say things like, ‘Oh, I don’t think Catholics have all the answers.’”

Hicks said many of the sisters interviewed grew up between the 1940s and the 1960s, when women were expected to get married, have babies and not do anything more than that.

“But these women were more interested in getting educated and traveling, and the Dominican sisters encouraged them to get their master’s and doctoral degrees,” Hicks said. “I found them to be so much more than stereotypical. These are women with opinions and thoughts — not sheltered at all. They are fascinating.”

Barry’s history dates back to 1940. That’s when construction finished on what was then called Barry College for Women. It became Barry University in 1981, and six Adrian Dominican Sisters have served as the school’s only presidents from 1940 to the present day.

But the declining number of sisters — there are only four fulltime sisters currently on the Barry campus — means that, realistically, there may soon be a day when the school is run by a “lay person.”

That’s why, Dean said, there is a larger archive project in which he and Hicks are documenting a crucial part of the university’s living history.

“When we started the project, we didn’t know what the sisters were like,” Dean said. “Luckily, Connie is a skilled interviewer, and it was very enjoyable and enlightening to hear what the sisters had to say.”

Dean said he has put in nearly 400 hours on the project, and one of his favorite stories from the interviews involves Sister Paul James Villemure and Sister John Karen Frei.

“The sisters took a road trip to Mexico to get orchids for a science project,” Dean said. “If they didn’t have lodging they slept in the car.”

Hicks added that the sisters always “checked to make sure there were no snakes under the car. Sister (Villemure) did not know how to drive, so she learned the day before they left on the trip — except that she learned on an automatic car and the car they borrowed from a faculty member was a stick shift.”

The sisters put 9,000 miles on the car during that trip — 6,000 round-trip from Barry and 3,000 while in Mexico.

“They were just two young sisters being a bit naïve and entering Mexico without all the proper documentation,” Dean said. “They conducted their experiments, but their orchids were confiscated when they tried to leave the country.”

“It just symbolized how they winged it. These were two bold, faithful women who did what they were told but were smart enough to get it done.”

Another of Dean’s favorites is Sister Nancy Murray, whose brother is famed comedic actor Bill Murray.

“Nancy told us that she wanted to join the Adrian Dominican Sisters because she always saw them laughing and having a good time,” Dean said. “She would see them having ice cream. They were pious, but they were not these old curmudgeons. They were the fun sisters.”

Besides being joyful, the sisters were powerful.

Sister Rosemary Ferguson told Dean the story about the university’s first president, Mother Mary Gerald Barry, dining with politicians and businessmen, all males, and holding her own at the table as a leader back in the 1940s and 1950s.

Dean said the sisters see their diminishing numbers as the natural progression of things.

“They are proud to have founded a mission,” Dean said. “To them, it’s not about the sisters. It’s about Barry’s mission of inclusiveness, empowerment, service, truth and social justice.”

This article first appeared in Barry University’s alumni magazine, Spring 2015 edition. It is reprinted here with permission.

Join the party

Some of the Adrian Dominican sisters who have worked at Barry University will return to the Miami Shores campus for a Mass of Thanksgiving on Sunday, Sept. 13, at 10:30 a.m. The Mass will kick off the school’s 75th anniversary festivities. The video about the sisters also will premiere this fall as part of the anniversary celebrations. For more information, visit www.barry.edu or contact the alumni office: 305-899-3175 or [email protected].