Sister Mildred says that the teaching experience in Welland, Ontario, was for her a tremendous awakening to all of the cultures that existed in the area at that time. The people who came to work on the Seaway construction following World War 11, as well as those involved in the steel, automobile, and textile industries were a mixture of middle Europeans and Italians whose cultures were very different from the people who lived on Prince Edward Island. Along with this culture shock the new thinking of the Second Vatican Council brought with it a liberation in customs and faith practice that could not have been imagined when Sister first began her novitiate. These made quite an impression on Sister so that her world view broadened and her acceptance of different ways of thinking about religion and life prepared her for the later tasks in her life’s work. Upon her retirement from teaching in 1987(and following an extended vacation in New York City) she began her studies in Canon Law at St. Paul’s (Univeristy of Ottawa) and graduated with her Masters in Canon Law in 1990. Since that time she has been co—ordination the work of the Marriage Tribunal in the Diocese of Charlottetown. She will retire from active ministry in August of this year.

Sister Mildred began life at St. Dunstan’s as a co-ed and afier entering the Congregation of St. Martha returned to the campus as a Sister. It was a strange role change to be with her fellow class mates first as just another co-ed ( and the co-eds themselves were set apart from the male students) then to return as a Sister who was automatically set apart by the mores and customs of the times. How were the students prepared to act to a classmate who was a nun? How was she to make this switch from student co- ed to student nun; and she was just beginning to establish her identy as a religious? But that was the way things were at that time in the behavioral expectations of PEI society with regard to women and religious in the activities of university life. Thank God for the beginning of liberation set in motion by Vatican 1].

Sister Mildred says that her life as a religious has been one of happiness, wonderful companionship and ministries that she enjoyed and still enjoys. “I have been priviliged to make and maintain relationships both here on Prince Edward Island and especially in Ontario where I spent many years. I continue to enjoy the relationships with my siblings, my in-laws, many members of my extended family, and was blessed to have my mother healthy and mentally alert until her death at 102 years.” She hopes to continue in a limited ministery, but also to find time relax and enjoy her many hobbies.