Story behind the photo: School Sister affected many in Baltimore

Media outlets enjoy feedback – especially when it sheds light on a subject.

In the Oct. 23 issue of The Catholic Review, a tribute to the School Sisters of Notre Dame included a photo of an unidentified member of the order. The day after publication, an e-mail arrived from Gerard A. Kreft, a parishioner of Church of the Annunciation in Rosedale.

“My wife was reading the Review last night,” he wrote. “I glanced over and saw the picture of a nun on the bottom left of page 16. I recognized it as our aunt, Sister Mary Salome.”

Rachel Scherer, associate director of communications for the School Sisters, promptly supplied the obituary that followed her death in 1991, along with a 2-page biography Sister Mary Salome typed in 1930, when she professed her vows.

Born in Suttons Bay, Mi., in 1907, she grew up in Charles County and attended St. Mary’s in Bryantown. “One of my most memorable days,” she wrote, “was May 28, 1916, the day of my First Holy Communion and Confirmation.”

She attended the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, earned a bachelors degree in education and a masters in library science from the Catholic University of America, then put her skills to use in a number of schools from Florida to New Jersey.

In Baltimore, Sister Mary Salome taught at the Institute of Notre Dame, St. Joseph Monastery and parish schools at St. Ann, Church of the Blessed Sacrament, Our Lady of Good Counsel and St. Michael.

Judging by the boys’ haircuts, the photo could have been taken in the 1950s or 1960s.