Sister serves students, the poor and the diocese

Intermountain Catholic

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Daughter of Charity Sister Stella Marie Zahner

SALT LAKE CITY — Daughter of Charity Sister Stella Marie Zahner came to Utah in 1961 to begin teaching at Notre Dame de Lourdes Catholic School in Price. Fifty years later, she is still working for the Diocese of Salt Lake City. She has been a religious for 57 years.

"I got off the train in Helper and said, ‘So these are what mountains really are like,’" said Sr. Stella Marie, who grew up in Missouri. "I had just graduated from Marillac College in St. Louis with a degree in teaching."

She knew she wanted to be a teacher from the time she attended a one-room school house with her older brothers and sisters. Sr. Stella Marie is the youngest of nine children; she attended a Catholic junior high and high school run by Daughters of Charity.

"The idea of being a religious evolved over the years," she said. "I was impressed that the sisters were teachers, but I also saw them assisting the poor. I saw a joy among them and I decided I wanted to teach and help people as a religious."

Sr. Stella Marie taught fourth and fifth grade at Notre Dame from 1961 to 1971. In 1971, she was sent to Phoenix, Ariz., to teach fourth and sixth grade. She returned to Utah in 1976, to teach fifth grade for four years at Saint Olaf School in Bountiful. She then taught eighth grade for four years before becoming the principal at St. Olaf. She had been principal for 11 years in 1995, when the Daughters of Charity withdrew from the school.

"At that time, Monsignor J. Terrence Fitzgerald (then vicar general of the Diocese of Salt Lake City) asked me if I would coordinate the Special Needs Program," Sr. Stella Marie said, adding that 16 years later she is still coordinating the program that gives monies to minorities and single parents with children who wish to attend Catholic schools. "Coordinating this program has been a wonderful experience," she said. "Having witnessed the struggles and trials of the working poor, I have been able to dispel many myths."

Sr. Stella Marie said it’s not always true that someone can find a job if he or she wants to, and single parents with children don’t consider sending them to Catholic schools. "My ministry helps me communicate the possibility of a Catholic school education to children in single-parent and minority homes," she said. "I had no idea what it would be like to live from day to day wondering where the money would come from for car repairs or medical expenses."

The income in the single-parent families with whom Sr. Stella works is mostly poverty wages, she said. "If there are two working parents, they usually earn minimum wages and, for example, can’t afford one child in a Catholic high school and two children in the Catholic elementary school," she said.

Sr. Stella had the experience of meeting with two high school students whose family she had known for a long time and whom she wanted to help. They declined because they couldn’t repay her. "I was shocked because, first of all I didn’t want repayment and secondly, I receive more than I give," she said.

Over the last 16 years, Sr. Stella Maria has lived the charism of her order – serving the materially poor. However, she loved teaching and misses the children.

"When I get lonesome for the schools, I visit the kids in the Special Needs Program even though I have to put on my principal’s hat because a student is receiving low grades," she said.