Omaha World-Herald
Monday, September 29, 2003

She wasn’t famous, but she was great

By DAVID D. PERLMUTTER

The writer is an associate professor of mass communications at Louisiana State University and a senior fellow at the Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs.

A nun died a few days ago in Yankton, S.D.  As a journalism teacher, I never would have classified her passing as an above-the-fold newspaper-headline event.  When famous people die, the world stops a moment to pay attention.

Significant people, however, die every day – people who positively affected many others but who neither achieved nor sought celebrity.  The world should take not of their passing, because while few of us can be entertainment or political stars, all of us can learn a lesson from these unfamous heroes about living more humane lives.

Sister Jean Marie Dunn, Order of St. Benedict, was a relative of mine by marriage; otherwise, and to my misfortune, I never would have heard of her.  From 1938 to 1995 she was by turns a school nurse, charge nurse, nursing supervisor, supply nurse and patient visitor in schools and hospitals in Nebraska, South Dakota and Colorado.  She retired to the Care Center of the Sacred Heart Monastery in Yankton, where she passed away this month. 

I met Sister Jean Marie only once, the summer I traveled with family members to see her.  At 89, she was still quick in speech and quick to smile but plainly serene.  Talking to her was a respite from the nervous, uncertain, materially envious 21^st century.  When she tired and we returned to her room, I was struck by the paucity of her possessions:  a few mementos and family pictures.

She was not alone in her spirit.  Wandering the hallways with my fussy 1-year-old, we found ourselves the target of every wheel-chaired and walker-pushing nun on the floor.  After a life of giving love, the nuns still had a ready supply.  However stricken by arthritis or other diseases, they all displayed that same calmness that must come only from being satisfied with what you have done in life and being certain about where you are going after its end.

After meeting Sister Jean Marie and her fellow nuns, I, a Jew, absolutely believed the standard epitaph bestowed on the death notice of her Order, “Come to me, my daughter…I will give you rest.”

Sister Jean Marie was not an oil-painted saint on a mountain top.  She was an ace crossword-puzzle-solver, debated politics knowledgeably, was an enthusiastic booster of the Nebraska Cornhuskers and the Minnesota Twins and ran a tight ship on every job she held.

Sister Jean Marie was notable also because she lacked the most distressing impulse of modern man:  self-publicity. 

I unashamedly tell my students that in this age it’s not enough to do good work; you must advertise those accomplishments.  The brassy wheel gets the pay raise, to put it in the crassest terms.  I think this is pragmatic career advice.  Our work world is so unstable, our company-employee loyalties so fractured, that striving for excellence and achievement must include being your own best press agent.

But the Judeo-Stoic philosopher in me cringes:  What a world of vain, self-involved, gold-ring grabbers am I contributing to?

Sister Jean Marie was not of this world in that crucial regard.  Certainly, each day she saw sickness, suffering and the cruelties of the mind and body.  She read newspapers and witnessed and understood the evils men wrought upon each other.

But in her history I find no trace of self-serving ambition—save to help others.  I find no need to claim glory—except for God.  I find no grasping greed—the only things she left behind are books, filled-out crossword puzzles, a crucifix and some photographs.  Yet, in her last years, scores of former students, parishioners, patients and fellow workers paid tribute to her love, words and acts of mercy for them.

What are the lessons of such a person and such a life for the rest of us?  Most of us can’t be like her for a lifetime.  But we can define her as a true “role model” that in meaningful achievement dwarfed the mightiest basketball player, most talented entertainer or the most powerful statesman.