Duty drove jubilarian to convent at age 17, but vocation led to a variety of loved roles

Sister Carolyn Puccio, a Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet, has learned much in her 60 years of religious life. One lesson she has applied time and again is that if you see a need, respond.

She remembers coming home from school around age 7 and telling her mother something that happened that seemed unfair. Her mother looked at her and said, “Well, what are you going to do about it?”

“That was bred into us,” Sister Carolyn said.

One of five children, Sister Carolyn’s family lived in north Minneapolis, where she attended St. Bridget church and grade school, and then-St. Anthony of Padua High School in northeast Minneapolis. During high school, likely her junior or senior year, the congregation prayed for vocations at every Sunday Mass, as all parishes in the archdiocese were asked to do.

She recalled the priest saying, “Lord, the harvest is great and the laborers are few.” And parishioners responded, “Choose from our homes those who are needed for your work.”

“I thought, ‘I’m not praying that,’” Sister Carolyn said. “There’ll be no choosing from our home for something like this now.” But she also thought, “They’re not going to give up until they get the priests and nuns that they need.” So, she thought, she may as well just give in.

For reasons including her older sister being married, and her older brother “needing to marry” to carry on the family name, Sister Carolyn decided she must be the “one.” She entered the convent after high school, at age 17, out of a sense of duty.

“The good news is, it turns out to be good in the end,” she said.

She had already been accepted into the nursing program at the then-College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, which was run by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. So, she presumed she could serve as a nurse after she became a religious sister. She was surprised when a member of the order told her, “Well, dear, we believe God wants you to be a teacher.”

“This was another of those times where I think, ‘I know what’s best for me,’” Sister Carolyn said. “But it ends up being better … because I don’t think I’d have been a good nurse.”

Her first assignment for the order was teaching second-graders in Marshall, located in southwestern Minnesota. She had serious reservations about living more than three hours from the Twin Cities.

“I thought I was going to die,” she said. “First of all, I didn’t want to be a teacher. Second of all, I didn’t want to go into the country. But here we go again.” Sister Carolyn ended up working in the area for 39 years. Including in Redwood Falls, Montevideo, Olivia, Lake Benton, Tyler, Vesta, Taunton, Milroy and Hutchinson.

“I fell in love with the country,” she said. “I thought I would hate it, but it turned out to be the best thing.”

When she taught second grade, she had 59 students in her classroom in 1965. “I thought it was normal,” she said. “And somebody asked me, ‘Well how many teacher’s aides did you have?’ I said they hadn’t invented teacher’s aides yet.”

In addition to teaching, Sister Carolyn, 78, took on other responsibilities, including coordinating religious education. She became a licensed psychologist and provided counseling services and worked with an employee assistance program.

She became a member of the CSJ province’s leadership team in 2004 and served for five years. In 2010, she was asked to work in development to help raise funds for Carondelet Village in St. Paul, a retirement community and a shared ministry of the Sisters of St. Joseph and Presbyterian Homes. It was another job she thought she didn’t want, but was proved wrong.

Sister Carolyn has served part-time since 2013 as delegate for consecrated life at the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and she continues a private practice in counseling.

Connecting with people has been the “thread” running through her history of accepting roles she didn’t think she’d like but ultimately enjoyed, she said. “Although my story is unique to me, I think you would find other women religious celebrating jubilees who have a similar path and responded to needs as they arose.”