Last of their kind
Cardinal Gibbons’ last two nuns retire.
FORT LAUDERDALE — Sister Marie Schramko had been a nun for 26 years when she moved here and became a founding principal of the still-under-construction Cardinal Gibbons High School in 1961.
She retired as assistant principal at the end of classes in December, leaving for Illinois with fellow-retiree Sister Janet Rieden, who arrived two years after Schramko and had been teaching art history.
Their departure marks the end of an era at the Catholic school. They were living reminders of its earliest days and the last nuns on the faculty. They are members of the Sisters of St. Francis of Mary Immaculate of Joliet, Ill., an order that once played an integral role at the school.
“There was never a day when there wasn’t a challenge,” Schramko said of her first years here. “If we needed something, we created it immediately, on the job. It was the beginnings of South Florida.”
They came at a time when the school had no air conditioning. They’re leaving at a time “whenever the air conditioning went out, you’d think the world was ending” for students, Rieden said.
Neither expected to spend a half-century here.
“When we were going to have our first class of seniors in Florida, they were to send us another sister,” Schramko said, speaking of Rieden. “When I spoke to her about going to Florida, she said, ‘I’ll give it one year,’ and that was 52 years ago.”
Schramko, 98, and Rieden, 82, have lived in the sisters’ house near the school by themselves for the past 15 years and there was concern about their continuing health.
Rieden had hoped to celebrate Schramko’s 100th birthday at the school in February 2017.
“I figured if we could just see that to the end, that would be a big celebration,” Rieden said.
The school did its part to send them off in style. On their way to the airport, the two were taken for one last drive through the school parking lot, with students filling the balconies, walkways and patios waving goodbye.
“The school’s going to be different because Sister Marie and Sister Janet represented a certain amount of permanence and stability,” Principal Paul Ott said. “There will be poignant moments in the school year when their absence will be sorely felt.”
They saw about 12,000 students graduate over the years and would often run into them later in life, whether it was a doctor or nurse during a hospital visit or the mayor at a special event.
“They both taught me, and they both taught my brothers and sisters, and they both taught my kids,” Mayor Jack Seiler said. He called them “kind, compassionate, caring” and “tremendous supporters of the students.”
There was no way the two sisters could sit at home when there was something needing to be done at school, said Brother Michael Brickman, a guidance counselor at the school.
“Sister Marie’s reluctance to slow down was not about her; it was about her role as a leader at Cardinal Gibbons,” Seiler said. “She wanted the kids to see she was still supporting them.”