My friend Elizabeth Hayes, the mother of the sextuplets and two sets of twins, is happy that her children see Sister Reginald Zajac regularly because Betty believes that nuns, especially in habit, are disappearing from the Catholic scene.
We do, however, get to celebrate their long and dedicated lives and see how they have embraced change.
Two Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, Judy Boisvert and Joan Tresch, marked 50 and 60 years in religious life recently.
Holy Name Hospital, in Teaneck, figured prominently in Boisvert's religious vocation. She was born there and started working there at the age of 14, but it wasn't a happy arrangement because of a nun, a Sister of St. Joseph who worked there.
When she decided to enter the convent, she contacted three communities and lo and behold, the Sisters of St. Joseph were the first to respond. She thought she would enter this group, be unhappy and wind up leaving.
"I would go in and get out," said Boisvert, reflecting that God had another plan.
She entered in 1957, took her habit the following year and final vows in 1960. All of her ministry took place in New Jersey, where she started at St. Elizabeth's in Wyckoff and then she taught elementary school in Whippany, Landisville, Wayne and Norwood.
As an administrator at St. Leo's in Irvington, she stepped into urban ministry and loved it.
"Although I had worked with inner city students during the summer in Jersey City and Port Norris, this was my first time both working and living in an inner-city environment. I found it absolutely wonderful and enriching. I learned a great deal about the faith and fortitude of people who are trying to get a better life for their children," said Boisvert, who eventually came to Sacred Heart and the Academy of St. Aloysius, which became Caritas Academy and is now closed, in Jersey City.
She now teaches at St. Mary's High School in Rutherford and lives alone in a Bayonne apartment.
Tresch came from Brooklyn and commuted with her family to a farm they owned in Washington, N.J., until they settled there in 1943.
She enrolled in the CCD program at the local parish. She thought the nuns were "too strict" and never aspired to become one until an incident over a May crowning made her feel empathetic for one nun.
"I watched her and wished I could be like her," said Tresch, who vowed to enter the convent in 1947. She started out teaching in Penns Grove and spent the next 46 years in the classroom and served twice as a principal in Wyckoff.
Most of her time was spent in Bergen County, including a stint at the community's orphanage in Rockleigh, now closed, until she went to the Philippines from 1965 to 1970. Returning to the United States, Tresch embarked on a second round of teaching assignments in South River, Newark and Beverly before taking a sabbatical in Boston.
For the last seven years she has lived in the convent attached to St. Ann's Home in Greenville and works two days a week at St. Paul's Rectory across the street. Looking back, she says, "I had a very good life. They took very good care of us."
Sister of Charity Mary Fallon marks her Golden Jubilee at St. Vincent de Paul Church, Bayonne, on Aug. 9, with a Mass at 1 p.m. Fallon is a guidance counselor at Marist High School and lives in a Bayonne apartment.