Sister Grace Marie Meehan stands with students at Our Lady of the Greenwood School in this 1964 photo.
Photo courtesy of Archdiocese of Indianapolis Archives
Sister Grace Marie Meehan remembers those years in Greenfield.
She taught at St. Michael Catholic School when it had just four classrooms, serving as both principal and teacher, living in a house with another nun or two across Jefferson Boulevard from the school.
“I loved Greenfield. The people were so wonderful to us … I had a good school board,” she said. Back then, “All we had behind us at that point were cornfields. Now I don’t even recognize the place when I’ve gone by.”
Greenfield has been just one of the many stops on the sister’s journey. This year she marks 75 years with the Sisters of Providence at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods in Terre Haute.
Grace Marie Meehan grew up in the Chicago area, the middle child and the only daughter between two sons. She grew up attending Catholic schools and found the nuns who taught there a positive presence, so much so that she began thinking of becoming one during grade school.
“The sisters that I had were so good to us,” she said. “They seemed to enjoy one another and enjoy life.”
She joined the Sisters of Providence in 1948 at age 18 and professed final vows in 1955. She earned a bachelor’s degree in education from Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College and a master’s degree in education from Indiana State University.
She taught at the former St. Agnes Academy in Indianapolis, served as a teacher and principal at Our Lady of the Greenwood School in Greenwood for nine years, and taught at Richmond’s St. Elizabeth Ann Seton School before coming to Greenfield. She was a teacher and principal at St. Michael from 1969-72.
She remembers marching classes to downtown Greenfield for the annual Parade of Flowers leading to the statue of poet James Whitcomb Riley, in years before the Riley Festival became an established tradition extending the festivities beyond the procession.
Mimi (Robak) McKee remembers Sister Grace Marie being at the school.
“She was a very jolly person,” McKee said. “Very sweet lady.”
Sister Grace Marie’s years as an educator also included assignments out of state, including California.
“If you’re in religious life, as my dad used to say, it’s like you’re in the navy,” she said. “You go where they send you. You just picked up your bag and went.”
After about 25 years of teaching, she retired. Around that time she was volunteering in the infirmary at Saint-Mary-of-the-Woods in her free time. There, she developed interest in becoming a nurse. She earned an associate’s degree in nursing from Lincoln Trail College in eastern Illinois.
Working in education and in nursing were “so different,” she said, “but in another way they’re not. You are serving and giving of yourself, and you’re also receiving a lot from other people.”
Her students — she imagines they must be grandparents or great-grandparents by now — were children who showed love and kindness. In hospitals, patients were grateful for what nurses could do to help them.
Most of her years in nursing were spent at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, Illinois, where she ministered for more than 20 years. She volunteered another 10 years after retiring.
Most recently, she ministered as a parish volunteer from 2020-22 at Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish in Albuquerque, New Mexico, part of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.
Today, at 93, she lives in “the mother house” at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods and remembers a lifetime of fellow nuns and laypeople who’ve enriched the journey begun 75 years ago.
“Religious life has been wonderful — the companionship of the other sisters, the good friends that I’ve made through the years.”
