By Gretchen Keiser

They’ve finally found a way to slow down Sister Roberta Joseph Sutton.

Fifty years in the religious life hasn’t done it. Hundreds of first and second graders who pulled on her hands and her habit and chased her around the baseball field and asked her every question under the sun for forty years didn’t do it. Eight years of dashing around Atlanta streets, in and out of Grady Hospital and nursing homes, befriending the weary older people who needed an advocate hasn’t done it.

But March 3 all of her friends gave Sister Roberta a party in honor of her golden jubilee. She stood stock still in the middle of the floor wearing a corsage and a new dress and looking as if were it not for her love for all these people she would run out the door. To those who have known Sister Roberta in recent years, she is the sister who, with her nearly inseparable cohort, Sister Marcella Meyer, visits the elderly and the poor in the city, bringing food or clothing to those who need such help and always bringing warmth and exuberant company to those who are alone.

But this work which the two sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet do for Catholic Social Services has been a second vocation for Sister Roberta. Beginning in the 1930s, when she entered the Georgia province of the Sisters of St. Joseph, professing her vows, her first assignment was to Sacred Heart School in Atlanta.

“She’s always been exactly the way she is now - just that bubbly and bouncy or even more so as a 20-year-old,” recalled Bob Hurst, who had Sister Roberta as a first grade teacher in 1938. “She’s a wonderful woman.”

John and Marcelene Markwalter of Augusta were among those to have more than one generation in a family taught by Sister Roberta. John was her student and she later taught all four of their children, becoming in the process a member of the family, an unannounced but welcome visitor at the door who might come or call at 10 o’clock at night.

In addition to her special “way with children,” Sister Roberta was always generous with her faith, Mrs. Markwalter said. “St. Anthony is her patron saint, and she always shares St. Anthony with those she meets.”

“All I remember is that one of my ears is longer than the other,” said John Markwalter, twinkling his eyes and ruefully tugging on the ear he remembered Sister Roberta pulling. But his wife said Sister Roberta’s discipline had been gentle with her children, done more “with a look -- but you got the message.”

A former Sacred Heart room mother, Pat Eaton, said Sister Roberta had the gift of making every child feel special and like he or she was the favorite. “Mine to this day thinks she’s the favorite,” Mrs. Eaton said, adding that her daughter, Debbie, had sent a note to add to the pile of gifts for Sister Roberta.

“Every child should have a Sister Roberta when they’re little,” she said, recalling a habited sister whose pockets were always full of surprises and who had boundless energy.

A serious fall in which she broke both her arms eventually forced Sister Roberta to give up classroom work -- her first love -- said Sister Marcell Meyer. But their new work with the poor and the elderly in Atlanta, which began in 1977 at the request of Father Jacob Bollmer, director of Catholic Social Services, has received the fullness of her energy and attention ever since.

“She is one of the most generous people I’ve ever worked with as far as giving of herself for the very poorest and the very neediest,” said Sister Teresa Termini, who directs services for the Elderly at CSS.

Indefatigable, she is notorious for wearing down the hardiest of volunteers who attempt to keep up at her pace as she travels around Atlanta, stopping at homes, hospitals and nursing homes and keeping up a steady stream of conversation with all whom she meets.

“She goes out from our office with two cases and she comes back with 10,” said Sister Teresa. “She picks up projects along the way.... By the time she has been out for two hours I get about five calls from people who say she told them to call and that I would help them.”

“The energy level befuddles me for a woman her age and with her level of service,” said Father Bollmer.

Together with Sister Marcella, she is an advocate for the elderly poor, working with utility companies to keep services turned on at the homes of the poor, sitting in the emergency room at Grady Hospital waiting with the poor for medical care or medicine, or visiting for hours with the lonely.

She received her habit as a Sister on March 19, 1935. In a round about way, she was asked how young she might have been at that time.

But her wits were too quick for the questioner. “I don’t even remember,” she said with a twinkle.