Two big milestones for Freeburg’s Sister Linda Maune SSND
Sister Linda Maune SSND has the only classroom in her school with a high-tech ViewBoard and an old-school blackboard.
“Some days, we turn the ViewBoard off and use the chalkboard, and the students love it,” said Sr. Linda, a School Sister of Notre Dame who has been teaching at Holy Family School in Freeburg since 1983.
Bishop Ralph B. O’Donnell recently presented Sr. Linda a pin for her 45 years of teaching (and counting) in the diocese, as well as a paperweight adorned with the diocesan Coat of Arms in honor of her 65 years in religious life.
He did so while highlighting faculty milestones at this year’s Faith Development Day for Catholic-school educators of the Jefferson City diocese.
Sr. Linda previously taught third and fourth grades at St. Joseph School in Westphalia from 1964-67.
“It’s been my privilege to work in this community for so long,” said Sr. Linda. “I thank God for his daily blessings, and I hope I can continue to serve him however he calls me in the future.”
Sr. Linda was the only religious sister in a gymnasium full of teachers and administrators from all over the diocese.
She stepped up to the stage when her name was called, looked out and noticed that everyone was standing.
“It was a real surprise to me,” she said.
Sr. Linda has made her home in Osage County. She currently has a few students whose grandfather she taught in Westphalia.
“At First Communions, I get to stand in those three-generation pictures,” she said.
Sr. Linda has been teaching first and second grade and helping her students prepare for First Holy Communion for her entire time at Holy Family.
“We were heavy into it this week,” she said a few days before this year’s students received the Lord for the first time.
“They asked excellent questions at rehearsal,” she noted. “They want to know, ‘What’s it going to feel like with Jesus in me?’ ‘Will the bread taste different?’ ‘How often can I receive Jesus?’
“They have their hearts in the right place,” she said.
Doing new things
When Sr. Linda entered religious life 65 years ago, almost all the teachers at a diocesan gathering would have been religious sisters.
She recalled that there were 24 sisters teaching elementary and high school when she was a student at St. Francis Borgia School in Washington, in the St. Louis archdiocese.
Now, most teachers in Catholic schools are laypeople.
“You see a lot more lay involvement in parishes now,” Sr. Linda noted. “I’m always thrilled to see some of my former students as leaders in the parish.
“That gives me hope for the kids I teach today, that they will carry on the faith,” she said.
Many other things have changed since her days in Westphalia and since she arrived in Freeburg.
“We didn’t have computers back then,” she noted. “And here I am, entering grades into a computer.”
She credits God for helping her stay open to new ideas, “different ways to teach and different ways to learn.”
The hardest part of that is letting go of something when she knows it works.
“But if I want to continue to teach, I need to keep trying new strategies, have an open mind and keep learning new things,” she said.
Good role models
Not only were all of Sr. Linda’s grade-school and high-school teachers SSNDs, two of her great-aunts from the neighboring town of Krakow were members of the congregation.
“Sister Sebastian and Sister Forreria Westholter,” she recalled. “When they were at the retirement home, my family would take my siblings and me to visit them.”
The sisters would ask her, “Little girl, what do you want to be when you grow up? You should think about being a sister!”
“That planted a seed,” Sr. Linda recalled.
In seventh and eighth grade, she and some of her classmates visited the SSND Motherhouse on the Mississippi River south of St. Louis.
“I’d see how happy they were,” said Sr. Linda. “I always wanted to be a teacher. So, why not be a sister teacher?”
She entered the SSND novitiate after graduating from Notre Dame High School in St. Louis.
She professed first vows in the congregation on July 29, 1960, embracing the Evangelical Counsels of poverty, chastity and holy obedience.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in history from the former Notre Dame College in St. Louis and a master’s degree in reading education from Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau.
She lives in the SSND community at neighboring Sacred Heart Parish in Rich Fountain and commutes to Holy Family School each day.
“The people in Rich Fountain take good care of me,” she said.
A big family
Sr. Linda has a clear picture of the kind of adults she hopes her students will become.
“For them to continue to grow in their faith and be faithful to their religious beliefs and going to Mass on Sundays and praying and passing that on to their children,” she said.
One former student recently introduced her husband to Sr. Linda, saying, “She taught me in first grade, and she’s still around.”
“It’s very encouraging to see how they’re using their talents and continuing to pass on the faith and support Catholic education and carry on the charism of the Schools Sisters of Notre Dame,” said Sr. Linda.
In her classroom, Sr. Linda takes a firm but kind approach to cultivating discipline.
If any of her students are having a bad day, “I pray for them,” she said. “I pray to the Holy Spirit when incidents happen. Just take it one step at a time. Praise them for every improvement they make.
“Talk to them and keep loving them and encouraging them and telling them the good things they’re doing and how they want to focus on doing what’s right,” she said. “That’s what works for me.”
When they turn a corner, she lets them know she recognizes it: “See? Your work is all caught up. You’re on the right track. I know you can do it. Keep showing me!”
Sr. Linda said this approach works well with students in the lower grades. Older students might need firmer guidance.
“Also, here in Freeburg, we have mostly country children who seem to be a little more docile, and parents who seem to be a little more involved in their children’s education and supportive of the schools and teachers,” she noted.
Especially in smaller schools, the older students show a lot of concern for younger students, and the younger ones look up to the older ones, she said.
“It’s one big family around here,” she stated.
Better together
Sr. Linda said her most memorable classroom moments are when children take part in activities as a team, shares ideas for a project or act out ways to put virtue into their daily lives.
“I have seen children learn so much from each other as they listened and worked cooperatively,” she said. “These, indeed, are life skills they will need in the years ahead.”
She’s grateful to work at a school where the entire faculty and staff function as a team.
“We work very well together, and that’s a great witness to the kids,” she said. “Everybody shares their talents.”
For instance, she said she’s not “super-techy,” but she knows who on staff to ask for help.
“And if they need help planning liturgies or something like that, they come to me,” she said. “So, we help each other work well.”
She’s excited at the prospect of work beginning soon on a major expansion to Holy Family School to keep it functional and inviting for years to come.
“We’ve seen a lot of remodeling to the building to keep it running and adding more electricity so we can have computers and other technological things,” she said.
“But there are still some areas that aren’t really conducive to learning, like a basement without windows, or the stage in the gym set up as a classroom,” she stated.
As for herself, having reached two important milestones in her life as a “sister teacher,” Sr. Linda asked for prayers to be able to “continue to persevere in my religious vocation and be grateful for the gift of each day.”
“I ask God to bless everyone who has been a part of the fabric of my life,” she said. “I can pray with Mary my own prayer of thanks and praise, for the Lord has been so good to me!”
