This month, we have a very special parishioner. Megan Harbold has chaired the 60^th Anniversary Committee all year and has loved getting to know so many of the parishioners through this process.

So, the Harbold family set out to find a similar experience. They started going to Mass at different parishes until they felt at home. That home turned out to be Holy Cross.

“During the first Mass we attended, so many people gave us smiles and waves,” Megan said. “It could be that we were in the last row and had loud children.”

After Mass, Father Robert introduced himself and made sure the Harbolds knew that Holy Cross School was starting a PK3 class. The very next morning, Megan called Holy Cross School Principal Lisa Kane to learn more about the PK3 program.

“Our son Cooper is in first grade and was part of the very first PK3 class at Holy Cross,” Megan said. “Our other son Parker started PK3 this year—we feel so blessed that they’re both now a part of Holy Cross School.”

The Harbolds typically can be found at the 9:30 a.m. Mass, sitting in the last pew if possible.

“Cooper always asks if we can sit closer to the front, but as we tell him, we aren’t front row people,” Megan said. “Maybe in a year or two when Parker is able to sit through the whole Mass without getting up, then we can be front row people.”

Megan loves being involved in the parish and school. She is a member of the Home & School Association and leads fundraising for the school.

“Cooper loves the school so much, and I know that Parker feels the same way in just his couple of weeks being there,” Megan said. 

To say that the Sisters of the Holy Cross are integral to our parish church, school, and campus is an understatement. Not only did the sisters donate the land for Holy Cross, they taught, ministered, and developed connections with our Holy Cross community that continue to this day. 

From these roots, and to respond more effectively to the mission of Jesus to witness God’s love for all creation, in 1841 Father Moreau founded the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Cross in Le Mans, France when four women received the religious habit. He placed them under the special patronage of Mary, the Mother of Sorrows and encouraged the sisters to be associated with her as women of faith and compassion, and promoted 12 virtues as a way of life. Originally the sisters cared for the housework in the boarding schools conducted by the priests. 

Just two years later, in 1843, four sisters arrived at Notre Dame, Indiana (the current mother house), to join Father Edward Sorin C.S.C and the Holy Cross priests and brothers in their ministry of education at what is now the University of Notre Dame. 

the sisters taught the children of the neighborhood and cared for several orphans. For many years that  followed the sisters worked tirelessly to develop the highest intellectual and religious qualities in both teachers and students. 

In August 1855, the convent and academy were moved from Bertrand, Michigan to Notre Dame, Indiana and St. Mary’s Academy eventually grew to become Saint Mary’s College. By 1861 the sisters were operating schools and orphanages throughout the eastern half of the United States. 

Shortly thereafter, in 1868, the sisters founded The Academy of the Holy Cross in Washington, D.C. They originally shared their school space with St. Matthew’s Parish school. In 1876, the Academy moved to rented space a 1440 M Street, N.W. where they stayed for three years before purchasing land and building a new school in 1879 at 1312 Massachusetts Ave, N.W. near Thomas Circle. In 1910, with the school growing, the Academy moved into the newly built Upton Street campus building. And in 1956, the school moved to its current location on 28 acres—bringing them to our neck of the woods.

From education, the sisters’ ministries expanded to include health care. In October 1861, six months after the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War, Governor Morton of Indiana asked the congregation if it could spare sisters to care for the Indiana soldiers. Although they had no training as nurses, six Holy Cross sisters, led by Mother M. Angela (Eliza Gillespie), volunteered to journey to Paducah, Kentucky, to tend the sick and the wounded and help establish nursing as a new and honored profession.

Before the war ended in 1865, 65 of the 160 sisters of the Holy Cross living in the United States would serve in the Civil War. 

The sisters were again called into service during the Spanish-American War when 13 sisters served in Army camps in Kentucky and Georgia. And as the nation expanded, the sisters responded by establishing 19 hospitals over 133 years, serving as administrators, nurses, and chaplains. 

Each September we celebrate Holy Cross’ feast day, Exaltation of the Holy Cross, on September 14th, and the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows, patroness of the Sisters of the Holy Cross, follows on September 15, so it was with great joy that the Holy Cross family of sisters, brothers and priests celebrated the beatification of Father Moreau on September 15, 2007.

By 1977, the newer Saint Angela Hall, the retirement home next to Holy Cross Church, had been constructed and the sisters sold the Mansion and its remaining 30 acres to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) for its temporary headquarters. 

In 1979, Montgomery County, Maryland acquired the Mansion and 11 acres from ASHA and renamed the house Strathmore Hall.

In 1961, the Holy Cross Sisters teaching at the new school were using borrowed cars to travel from Saint Angela Hall mansion to Holy Cross Elementary. By 1965, the sisters were living in the new convent, but still needed transportation to get around. Then the sisters saw that they could “buy” a car by collecting Top-Value Stamps, the T-V collection drive was on! 

accumulated in books, the stamps could be exchanged with  the trading stamp company for “premiums”, such as toys, personal items, housewares, furniture, and appliances—and even a car! On Rockville Pike where Marshall’s is currently located, there was a previous shopping center, and one store was the S&H Green Stamp Redemption Center. 

By looking through every week’s bulletin from January 1965 through October 1965, notices shared that for 1,000 Top Value books, the sisters could get a station wagon. With a little research, it was discovered that a station wagon offered by Top Value in 1965 was a Ford Falcon wagon—so perhaps that was the car they were aiming for! 

Vista Cruiser station wagon… “The nuns in their local parish school needed suitable transportation for school use and solicited donations of stamps to secure its purchase.”

Holy Cross Parish had a poster drawing of a large thermometer to share the progress in collecting the Top Value Stamp books for the car. And, as usual, parishioners came through!

The count of collect stamp books recorded and shared in the 1965 bulletins was:

Then, in the bulletin of October 17, 1965, the following announcement:

“NOW IS THE TIME FOR THE BIG PUSH!!! We have been advised by the Top Value stamp people that we need only 855 books of stamps to get the sisters’ station wagon. If each one will search his or her closets, kitchen drawers, every place where stamps may be hidden, we just might get over the hump! We have been advised that money will be accepted in lieu of stamps. So, if you have no stamps and wish to help out, we will gladly accept your contribution.”

So, it looks like this is how the sisters got their car! We aren’t sure if they purchased a station wagon or a sedan (which required fewer books of stamps) in the end… but we do know they couldn’t have done it without the support of the generous Holy Cross parishioners!

Sisters of the Holy Cross comprised the bulk of the teach staff for the first 10 years of the school and were at the helm as principal for the first 43 years. They served as fulltime classroom instructors as well as support staff and art and music instructors. As well as serving the parish community as choir director (Sister Elizabeth Loughran, 1974-1977) and Ministry to the Sick and Homebound (Sister Veronica Kerwin, mid-1970s-2018). 

As time passed, and with the declining number of sisters available to teach, more lay teachers joined the nuns as faculty; and today, the school is exclusively staffed with lay classroom teachers. However, as recently as the 2018, some grades continued to have the nuns teach religion and help prepare the children to receive the sacraments. By 2019, Saint Angela Hall, a retirement residence for the Sisters of the Holy Cross, was closed and the sisters were called back to the Mother House in Notre Dame, Indiana.

for Eucharistic Adoration. As we learned on the weekend of September 12, 2021, a major renovation is in the works to update Quinn Hall and utilize the space for the entire parish including a dedicated area (previously the library) for school curriculum expansion.

The contributions of Principal Miriam Regina Brosnan (1984-2000)—for whom the Sister Miriam Center is named, and Sister Veronica Kerwin have been profiled in the August and July newsletters, respectively. But every Sister of the Holy Cross who taught or interacted with students at the school and with parishioners is fondly remembered with memorable stories. 

Principal Sister Elizabeth (Ronald Mary) is remembered for handing out a lollipop to students who skinned their knees on the playgrond and braved the mercurochrome. Tara Pollard Macia HC ’81 shared this special memory, “We used to have hot lunch (hot dogs and chips) once in a while. The cost was 25 cents. I was in 1st grade and this must have been the first hot lunch of the year and my mother was still in the hospital after having my brother, so I suppose my father (probably being overwhelmed) sent me with the standard peanut butter sandwich. I didn’t comprehend that we had to pay for the hot lunch and offered to trade Sister Ronald Mary my lunch for the hot lunch. She was so amused that she ended up paying for my hot lunch herself.”

For many years, if a student forgot their lunch, they would go to the side door of the convent and Sister Melissa (in residence) or Mrs. Baker (the housekeeper) would make you a peanut butter and marmalade sandwich. Students were well cared for!

a Christmas bazaar where they sold exquisitely sewn and crocheted items they had crafted. That was always a special event!

And on holidays like Halloween, Christmas, St. Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, and others, the Holy Cross students would visit the sisters at Saint Angela, usually with a song or performance to entertain a very receptive audience!

Though our interaction with the Sisters of the Holy Cross is far more limited in 2021 than it was in 1961, their legacy with Holy Cross carries on. In 1983, Father Gatto placed a letter in the bulletin that read, in part:

Holy Cross Parish owes so much to the Sisters of the Holy Cross for their stewardship, generosity, and devotion to our parish community. And we, like Monsignor Gatto, continue to express our gratitude!

Fifty Years, “Long before art maven Sister Wendy, televangelist Mother Angelica, and, on a different plane entirely, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Sister Madeleva was a celebrity.”

Such a “celebrity” that she was profiled on June 10, 1957, in Life Magazine and her obituary appeared with a photo in the New York Times when she passed away at 77 on July 25, 1964; with one obituary calling her “the most renowned nun in the world.”

Born Mary Evaline Wolff in Cumberland, Wisconsin in 1887, she joined the Sisters of the Holy Cross in 1908 and chose the name Madeleva. For 27 years (1934-1961), Sister Madeleva was the third President of Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, IN. She was a complex woman who believed strongly in the education of women and the beauty of poetry and writing—authoring 70 books, and she understood the value of strong relationships and public image. Sister Madeleva was a scholar, a nature lover, a prolific poet and writer (often called the “lady abbess of nun poets”), a