Edna Mary Magdalen McCann
May 29, 1906 - February 20, 1993A man in a business suit, touching the coffin of his fifth grade teacher,
was heard to say quietly, "Goodbye, my love."
Sister Carmelite compared Sister Mary Clare's vigorous approach to life to that reflected by the poet Dylan Thomas as he wrote of his own father's passing:
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
"She had a deep heart for the poor," said Fr. John Spriggs, pastor of St. Agnes. When the school closed and the people needed someone to talk to, she was there. She and Sister Mary Charles saw the parish through the transition period, staying to welcome Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity. As long as they were there they kept two extra loaves and sandwich makings for street people, who might also get a homily on finding God in their lives.
Fr. Dominic Brady, distinguished, former chaplain of the motherhouse, recalled that Clare had discovered his sweet tooth, and kept him supplied. They were fellow natives of Madison, Wisconsin. Ten priests attended the funeral. Fr. John Reynolds realized only now that "when Sister left us at Lourdes to found St. Agnes in Baton Rouge she was all of thirty years old. She was a rock: crusty exterior, with a heart of gold."
Father Doug Doussan: "We felt the 'rock' on our knuckles; she was loving, tough, a woman of conviction, values, inner authority; she was strict, never harsh or mean." Father Bob Guste: "We were wary of the power of the "evil" eye; her one green eye, one brown, kept us in awe." Others witnessed to the power of an extraordinary woman: "We learned more than our lessons, fifty years ago. She took the boys of Lourdes and turned them into men." "She may have been hard of hearing, but her boys went down in crocodile file. We called her 'Sister Dynamite."' A man in a business suit touching the coffin of his fifth grade teacher was heard to say quietly, "Goodbye, my love."
Her power was not limited to boys. In Sister's confirmation class at St. Anthony's most of the girls in the class took "Clare" for their
"Edna May" was one of 14 children. Dorothy Reed, 92, her one surviving sister, attended the funeral with her daughter. Edna was six and Dorothy twelve when their mother died and the father placed four of the youngest at St. Rose Orphanage in Milwaukee. A niece, Mary Clare Ziech, now a special education teacher, writes, "I remember snowball fights with Sister on her winter visits to Wisconsin. She had pretty good aim. Sister visited my school once; a group of deaf children ran up, surrounded her, hugged-- and walked off. It was mystical."
