By Rita McInerney

The last three years have been fulfilling for Sister Rosemary Wickham, OSF, who came to north Georgia after 45 years as a teacher and principal in California, Illinois and Iowa.

On Sunday, Feb. 4, with the people of St. Francis of Assisi Church in Blairsville, she celebrated her 50^th anniversary as a Sister of St. Francis of the Holy Family.

During the liturgy celebrated by Glenmary Father Ed Gorny, pastor of St. Francis and St. Paul the Apostle in Cleveland, she renewed her religious vows and then spoke briefly to the congregation. Her life is different with them, she said. Living as a Franciscan sister, teacher and principal for so many years, it was not always easy to make connections with the lay people.

“When you talked to people you were still a principal. It was never like that here in the mountains. When I came here, I just became one of you.”

Members of her family mingled with her church family at the reception after Mass. Visiting her for the golden jubilee celebration were her sisters, Sister Jean Wickham, also a Franciscan from Dubuque, and Helen McClain, and their brother, Jay Wickham, of Dubuque.

Attracting attention was the large bulletin board display, “Through the Years With Sister Rosemary.” Pictures borrowed from albums recalled the jubilarian’s life from childhood to the present.

A wreath-enclosed photo of Sister Rosemary in the pre-Vatican II habit drew amazed comment from those unfamiliar with such garb.

Later in the afternoon, Sister Rosemary talked about her early years in Catholic education and her pastoral ministry today. The first few months in Blairsville “I just felt my way.” Father Bob Poandl, then pastor, was reassuring. “You’ll find your niche,” he told her.

“People asked me to start a Bible group,” she said. “I adapted the Little Rock Scripture Study to fit the people here. We started here in Hiawassee with eight people in different homes. In a few weeks there were 15 people.” The Hiawassee people told the people in Blairsville and a Bible group was started there.

“People here are so accepting of new ideas. They want to be challenged. They want to learn and grow as Christians,” Sister Rosemary says.

“You’re very aware that you’re affecting people’s lives. Many come from big parishes and never had sisters visiting them in their homes.”

“The beauty of the mountains and the beauty of the people” combine to make her new ministry enjoyable, although she does admit that the mountains are a long way from home and family in Iowa. The visit from her sisters and brothers, and traveling with them to Florida was a happy prelude to the celebration at St. Francis.

On June 17 she will celebrate with seven other golden jubilarians at the motherhouse, Mount St. Francis, in Dubuque.

Fifty years ago, as sister Perpetua, she began teaching in the Iowa Catholic school system, for 12 years in Petersburg and Pocahontas; then she was sent to Crescent City, Calif., as the first principal of a new Catholic school.

Here she was able to involve herself totally in the school year-round since visits home were once in seven years in the pre-Vatican II days. During summers, she and the other sisters took courses in new teaching methods and she implemented teaching of the new math.

From this assignment, enhanced by the beauty of the ocean and the redwood forests, she was presented with a new challenge as principal of Corpus Christi, a school in a Chicago inner city black neighborhood.

She helped implement an “Art in the Street” program in the Chicago ghetto. Through the program, young children, teenagers and the elderly were introduced to the richness of art by Franciscan seminarians and sisters of her congregation working in teams throughout the inner city.

After five years in Chicago, she returned to Iowa with a varied background in Catholic education. By that time she was using her baptismal name, Rosemary, instead of Perpetua.

She was assigned as a teaching principal at a school in western Dubuque. Serving as principals in the same school district were two other Wickhams, sister Jean and younger brother Tom.

Arcadia, Iowa, was her final school assignment. “I preferred to be both principal and teacher,” she admitted. “And when new things came along I liked to try them out. Teachers do accept what you say if you also do it yourself.”

While in Arcadia she took part in a writing workshop and then “Got all the kids writing.” It was a heady experience for both the students and the teachers.

In her final Arcadia year she prepared for a new assignment then still unknown, by taking a weeklong course on the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults. Leaving teaching in rural Iowa after 17 years was easier for her when her order was able to “get one of our own sisters to replace me.”

Then, when she came to the north Georgia mountain assignment, she replaced Sister Lene Rubley, who had been her student early in her teaching years. “I had to follow in her footsteps,” she remarked with a smile.

Her first visit in Blairsville was over the 1986 Christmas season. She liked the people of St. Francis of Assisi and the mountain area and later applied for the post of pastoral assistant being vacated by Sister Lene.

She came to stay in August, 1987. Since that time she has enjoyed working and socializing with the people in Hiawassee, Blairsville and Cleveland. She enjoys being close to nature and the chance for rafting and white water canoeing the area offer.

Most of all, she is overwhelmed by the outpouring love and acceptance shown by her church community.