The light in the worlds of her family,
friends and Ignatius colleagues flickered and dimmed a bit when we heard, on
the morning of July 27th, of the passing of Joan Terracina. This
occurred exactly three weeks to the day after her 96th
birthday.
Joan had been the secretary/receptionist
in the school’s Treasurer’s Office for 50 years, running from 1939 until her
retirement in 1989. She was the
“conduit” that stabilized the transition through countless treasurers…mostly
Jesuits…who sat at the helm of that very important office. To many generations of students and faculty,
she was known only as the short, Italian-looking lady who worked in the
Treasurer’s Office, behind a door so sturdy that it could have easily passed for
a submarine bulkhead.
Joan grew up around Taylor St. near
Ignatius, and in December of 1939, the President of St. Ignatius High School
(It’s official name at that time), Rev.
Nicholas Mann, S.J., hired a 21 year old Miss Joan Terracina to work in the
Treasurer’s Office until things “got caught up”. For fifty years, Joan labored, helping to
“catch things up”. Just before Joan
started to work, her family moved to the Austin area and, for 50 years, she
would commute, or depend on getting a ride from a fellow employee to and from
St. Ignatius.
On December 10th of 1989, Joan
T. Terracina was awarded the most prestigious award the St. Ignatius College
Prep bestows on it deems worthy. On that
date, at the annual Christmas Benefit
in Orchestra Hall, for her years of outstanding
service to the school and community, Fr.
Donald Rowe, S.J., presented the Dei Gloriam Award to her. (There is a two-page spread in the 1990
yearbook capturing that event.)
Notice that I said, “…and community”. At Joan’s funeral Mass, Fr. John Mulvihill
spoke of Joan’s years of service in the Legion
of Mary, an organization of Catholic Laity who were commit to prayer and 2
hours a week in the service of the parish.
This work includes visitations, religious education, visiting the sick
and homebound, and anything else that the pastor deems necessary to members in
need in that parish.
In her parish, St. John Bosco, Joan was
actively involved for 54 years singing in the choir, Altar and Rosary,
working parish fund-raisers, as well as the Legion of Mary.* She was never married, so her top two
“passions”, in no particular order, were her faith and her family, with her
love of St. Ignatius a close third.
After her retirement, I lost track of Joan
for 23 years. Two years ago, John
Chandler called me to let me know Joan was at a retirement facility, and he said
he’d appreciate my getting in touch with her.
That rekindled a friendship that was as rewarding to me as it seemed to
be to her. Even at 94 years old, though
physically frail, her mind was still as sharp as ever. Every other week, I’d visit her and we’d share
memories of the “old” days. She would
regale me with stories of her working for the Jesuits…always complimentary I
assure you.
The closing line in the article in the
yearbook says, “It is a fitting that this award (the Dei Gloriam Award) goes to
a woman who is a living example expression of the Jesuit ideal.” I couldn’t have said it better. God bless you, Joan. Rest in peace, dear lady.*
*Many thanks to Sister Ann
Vincent, one of Joan’s many loving cousins, for sharing many of the details of
Joan’s life with me.
