Sister Catherine Phelps, Catholic educator
Sister Catherine Phelps, who headed the Trinity School in Howard County for more than four decades, died of leukemia June 15 at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. She was 86.
Born Elizabeth Mae Phelps in Baltimore and raised in Washington, she was the daughter of William Elwood Phelps Sr., an A&P grocery store manager, and his wife, Marie Catherine Hohman.
She attended Saint Francis Xavier School in Washington and Maryvale Preparatory School in Baltimore County.
She entered the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur at the order’s motherhouse in Ilchester, and received the name Sister Catherine. She later received a degree at Fordham University in school administration.
“She was an extremely gifted individual who would have been a success in any career she chose,” said the Rev. Christopher Whatley, pastor of St. Mark’s Church in Catonsville. “She was academically gifted, tremendously well-organized and had a keen insight into human nature. She took a simple elementary school and transformed it into a paradigm of Catholic education for the 21st century.
“She had a capacity for compassion which manifested itself in the FISH of Howard County, an organization that helps the unfortunate,” said Father Whatley. “She was beloved by her family and highly respected and cherished by the Sisters of Notre Dame.”
Sister Catherine taught at St. Martin’s School in Washington and at Maryvale, and became principal at St. Ursula School in Parkville.
She then arrived at Trinity School in 1971, and headed the Ellicott City school for 47 years.
She led the construction of a new middle school and media center and refurbishment of buildings that served students from kindergarten to the eighth grade.
“She never retired and remained in constant motion,” said her sister, Paula Dodson of Waldorf. “She had a true vocation to the religious life. She was a loving and giving person.”
A Mass of Christian burial will be offered at 11 a.m. Thursday at St. Mark Roman Catholic Church, 30 Melvin Ave., Catonsville.
In addition to her sister, survivors include another sister, Linda Koper, also of Waldorf; and four nephews.
Their incendiary rhetoric resulted in stickers labeling their first album as “Recommended for Mature Adults Only” and limited its play on the radio. Yet it sold more than 300,000 copies and led to a booking at the Apollo Theater alongside R&B singer Jerry Butler and the O’Jays.
Mr. Nuriddin’s focus on crime, drugs and the havoc they inflicted on black communities culminated in “Hustlers Convention,” a landmark recording. The album became the subject of a 2014 documentary, “Hustlers Convention,” produced by Chuck D, whose group Public Enemy helped bring hip-hop to the fore of American music in the late 1980s.
Mr. Nuriddin was born Lawrence Padilla in 1944, and raised in the projects of the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn. He joined the Last Poets in 1969, one year after its formation in Harlem. He eventually moved to London and in recent years recorded albums under the name Jalal, including “On the One,” “The Fruits of Rap” and “Science Friction.”
While he was delighted his music had laid a foundation for other artists, Mr. Nuriddin was not always happy about those who followed. The verses of “Hustlers Convention,” he said, led the way for gangsta rap — artists who focused on hustling and crime but failed to reflect on its consequences.
He was “downright sad,” he told the Guardian, that “Hustlers Convention” “introduced what they called gangsta rap on the scene, but they didn’t get the point.”