Mark and Sue Quinn value the witness of the sisters who’ve blessed their lives.
For Mark, a teacher of business and finance in the Chicago suburbs, that includes his teachers at St. Walter Parish on Chicago’s south side: Sister Aloysius (Sister Mary Ann Droste) and Sister Monica Finnegan—and Sister Aniceta Skube, whom he met in adulthood at Ss. Peter & Paul in Naperville. His gratitude to the Springfield Dominicans is perpetual. “They taught me to read, to use numbers—they helped me learn how to think, and most of all enriched my love for our Savior and served as an example of living out that love.”
“I remember Sister Aloysius taking me out in the hallway in fourth grade and telling me, ‘Mr. Quinn, I know you are sitting here chock full of brains. If you would just apply yourself you would do very well.’ That’s when everything turned around for me academically,” Mark recalls from his living room in Naperville, Ill.
His relationship with Sister Aniceta developed decades later and centered around their mutual love and concern for the church. “We’d see each other at every morning at 6:45 Mass,” he says. “She was very warm. We’d go to Springfield and visit her, sit in the cafeteria, eat the ice cream bars, and talk about the church. We were both very concerned about the future of the church. We both liked to pray a lot and pray for each other.”
“Mr. Quinn, I know you are sitting here chock full of brains. If you would just apply yourself you would do very well.” Sister Aloysius said. “That’s when everything turned around for me academically.”
Sue has an equal appreciation for the presence and ministry of Catholic sisters. She supervises nursing students at a facility run by sisters and is a daily witness to their devotion to their ministry. “The sisters are real,” she says. “Day in and day out they are consistent; they are always there for you.”
The Quinns’ relationship with the Dominican Sisters fuels their desire to support our mission with an annual gift. “The good work of the church was mostly done by the women of the church,” Mark says. “I own my faith today to the sisters who provided me with that early faith formation.”
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