At 103, Sister Jean of Loyola University has a memoir: Shocking details? None. Gripes? Just one.
CHICAGO — Sister Jean of Loyola University, who stands atop Chicago’s A-list of celebrity clergy, waited until she was 103 to write her memoir. Clearly, she didn’t take the advice packed into its title: “Wake Up With Purpose! What I’ve Learned in My First Hundred Years,” out Feb. 28. Clearly, what she learned in her first hundred years was how to procrastinate. Certainly, she’s not alone in waiting until later in life to write a book. Laura Ingalls Wilder waited until her 60s before writing her first “Little House” novel. And Norman Maclean waited until his 70s, after retiring from the University of Chicago, before he wrote his first book, “A River Runs Through It.”
I guess Sister Jean was just a whole lot busier than Laura Ingalls Wilder, who spent several decades tramping around the Midwest, tending crops and building sod houses.
When I asked about her centurylong case of writer’s block, Sister Jean said, in fact, she really been too busy to think about writing a book. , when she, several publishers approached her. She was busy. Now that she has written a book (with sports journalist Seth Davis), “it’s been the busiest time of my life.” Lately, she’s blessing all of the dorms. She’s talking to Access Hollywood, NPR and Good Morning America. And that’s beside her main focus: the Ramblers’ season.
