By S.L. Hansen
for the Register
With a heart filled with gratitude, Sister Collete Bruskewitz, OSF, is celebrating the 70th anniversary of her reception into the School Sisters of Saint Francis June 13.
“It’s such a gift,” she said. “All the wonderful places and good things I experienced. It has been really wonderful.”
Sister Collette grew up in a faithfully Catholic home in Milwaukee, with parents who lovingly raised their children in a rhythm of prayer, worship and generosity.
Holy water fonts near each door of the house were used upon entering or exiting. Their father would bless Sister Collette and her brother, Bishop Fabian W. Bruskewitz, every night before bed. Priests and sisters were frequent guests around the dinner table, and parents of local teaching sisters would stay in the Bruskewitz home when they came to Milwaukee to visit their daughters.
Sister Collette’s teachers were School Sisters of Saint Francis. While studying the mystical Body of Christ in seventh grade, her teacher, Sister Bartholomew, OSF, said “The Lord has a plan for you.” Young Collette accepted that as an invitation to explore the religious life. She was sure she could learn to teach, and truly wanted to learn how to pray better.
Two years later, she moved to the sister’s convent high school across town.
“School was fun and nice,” Sister Collette recalled. “All these girls wanting the same thing. There were so many girls from all over the United States – many from Nebraska.”
After three years of normal high school studies, Sister Collette became a postulant, along with 34 other girls from her class, and some newcomers who had finished high school elsewhere. They numbered 75 altogether.
Sister Collette describes that year as a time of discernment. “You learned to live your faith really well, and took theology classes.”
Life at the expansive motherhouse was busy and fulfilling. Each summer, sisters who had been out on missions returned for retreats, filling the campus with even more women who were devoted to serving the Lord.
After two years as novices, Sister Collette and 75 other women made their first professions June 21, the feast of St. Aloysius, patron saint of youth and students. They received the habit, which Sister Collette treasures to this day.
That summer, she and the others in her class moved to the community’s recently built Alverno College, formerly St. Joseph Normal School.
“We were the first to move to Alverno,” Sister Collette recollected.
At the college, novices were educated in nursing, teaching and music. Sister Collette trained as a teacher-organist, having segued from piano lessons to organ lessons toward the end of grade school.
“My mother always wanted me to have music, and Dad had studied music,” remembered Sister Collette.
A new music teacher during Sister’s seventh- and eighth-grade years wanted her to learn to play the organ.
“The teacher was nice, but I wasn’t that good at music,” Sister Collette said with a smile. “I was medium.”
Sister Collette’s first assignment came the following August: she would teach first and second grades at a school in Monroeville, Ind. in the Diocese of Fort Wayne. School had already begun when she arrived, and she took comfort in the guidance of two older religious sisters who had been teaching there for some time.
“That’s the advantage of religious life,” Sister Collette noted. “You’re with people who have had those experiences, people who can support you.”
As a new teacher, Sister Collette not only taught all the normal subjects, she also prepared her first-graders for first Reconciliation, and her second-graders for their first Holy Communion. The next year, she taught first, second and third grade, and her third-graders were prepared for Confirmation. All the while, she served as organist for Mass. During summer breaks, she returned to Alverno and took classes to finish her college degree.
The next years took Sister Collette to different small towns in Illinois: Pesotum, Aurora, and Kankakee. The schools were equally small: two, three or four classrooms. In Kankakee, the astute principal suggested that Sister Collette get a school administration degree, so she continued to take summer college courses, including master’s level courses at Marquette University, for the next decade or so.
“I finished my college training over 14 summers,” Sister Collette said.
When she was able to be a teacher, organist (which sometimes included directing choirs) and principal, Sister Collette was sent to other schools: Frankenstein, Mo., then back to Illinois to serve in Bloomingdale, Le Mars, and Glendale Heights. Some were small, some were larger, up to 16 classrooms.
“I look back, and all those kinds of experiences were so good,” she beamed.
After her father died in 1979, Sister Collette requested assignments closer to Milwaukee. Her brother, then a priest, also asked to be moved back to the area from Rome. He became the pastor of St. Bernard Church in Wauwatosa, a Milwaukee suburb. There, he was able to help their mother as needed, including mowing the lawn or shoveling snow.
In 1992, then-Monsignor Bruskewitz was named the eighth bishop of the Diocese of Lincoln. It was evident that their mother would be moving to Lincoln with him, but she would also need more support.
So, Sister Collette moved to Nebraska with her mother and brother, to serve as the bishop’s secretary. With all her experience in education —especially rural settings—she also became an asset to the diocesan education office as assistant diocesan superintendent.
Since the bishop’s retirement and her own retirement from the education office, her daily schedule is a little lighter, but she is still her brother’s secretary and driver. She also pitches in at his house by helping with laundry and shopping or tending to his little dog.
She smiled, “How do you part time with your own brother?”
The two of them sometimes marvel at how they have ended up serving the Lord and His Church together these last 34 years – nearly half of Sister Collette’s life as a religious sister.
“Looking back from where I started to where I am, I never thought this would be possible,” she mused. “It was all so well planned, but of course it is. Who is in charge?”
As she considers the coming years and possible retirement to the motherhouse in Milwaukee, Sister Collette’s only real plan is to, “Keep Him in charge,” she stated. “Whatever God wants.”
She is so very grateful for the plan He has had for her life, and the gift of faith.
“I loved being able to share that with children over the years,” said Sister Collette. “All those different kinds of experiences were so good.... It was really wonderful.”
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