By Gretchen Keiser

A special group of friends remember every detail of their encounters with Sister Mary Jeannette Crosson, GNSH, a nun who often sported a red stocking cap and befriended the elderly.

“My husband has Parkinson’s (disease) for over eight years,” recalled Philomena Pratt. “Sister Jeannette came into our high rise. I told her about my husband. From that day on she came and brought Communion to me and my husband.”

“He was completely helpless, but she would sit down and talk to him. I often wondered if she got through to him.” When Joseph Pratt had to be hospitalized finally, Sister Jeannette visited him for 31 days, Mrs. Pratt recalls and then for 28 more days at a nursing home where he was cared for until his death. “She was always there…I never say her without a smile.”

Engracia Montejo, a Spanish-speaking resident of Calvin Court, another Peachtree Road-area high rise, said through a translator her husband also had been very ill. “There was so much love that her husband, who never smiled, always smiled and talked” to Sister Jeannette. “They couldn’t communicate in language, but they could communicate in love,” Mrs. Montejo said. “Thank you Father for Sister Jeannette – good, good, good.”

At a memorial Mass on April 24 at the Cathedral of Christ the King stories abounded about the self-effacing woman who was a part of Christ the King parish and school for over 20 years. She died April 14 after suffering a massive stroke the day before.

Father Tom Kenny, Cathedral rector, said her humility was a great draw. On Commitment Sunday Sister Jeannette stood in the cold and rain outside holding a poster with pictures of various outreach ministries. “It rained all over her pictures. God knows she was a poor commercial for the wonderful work she did, but she drew all kinds of people to herself” as a result.

Phyllis Wigton, Cathedral staff member, said there were many projects Sister Jeannette started that no one else knew about. “We would get calls from people who said it was so nice to be remembered (by the Cathedral) on their birthday…We never knew where the cards came from. They came from (Sister Jeannette).”

Her roommate on a recent study trip to the Holy Land, discovered Sister Jeannette traveled with computer sheets of address labels so every elderly or housebound person she knew received a postcard. She spent her free time writing dozens of cards.

The Cathedral supports a private bus that stops at many elderly complexes to pick up people for Mass and Sister Jeannette rode the bus to help people on and off or met it at church.

“No one will replace Sister Jeannette,” Father Kenny said. But “I saw so many people snatching up the flag that is fallen asking ‘Who will ride the bus? Who will send the birthday cards she sent?’ It must have been sweet music to her ears because that was her plan all along – that her ministry would succeed her.”