Educating Educators

The Music Department at Marywood greatly benefited from the labors of Sister M. Aloysius Smith. She was born in Honesdale, PA, in 1881, and given the name Helen. Her education was quite unconventional; she played the piano for the graduation for St. Paul’s Parochial School in Green Ridge in 1898; she attended and graduated from Scranton High School (soon after to be Scranton Central High) in 1899. From newspaper clippings of the day we learned that she was listed as an accompanist or pianist for some school functions. It is unknown what she did for the three years after her graduation from high school before she entered the IHMs, but we do know that she played the piano at Scranton High School as part of the 1900 graduation ceremony.

She was among those received and professed in the new motherhouse in 1902 and 1904. Helen was considered a talented musician. She ministered in Mt. St. Mary’s Seminary and when Marywood College opened, she was placed on the staff in the Music Department. She was listed in the second Marywood catalog in that department. But her education was not finished, because in 1916 she was sent to the Bush Conservatory of Music in Chicago, IL, where she received a Bachelor of Music Degree. Newspaper accounts of her life stressed that she had a great influence on the Music Department at Marywood and was responsible for establishing Mt. St. Mary’s as a music center.

Her obituary states that her last time to play the organ at the Motherhouse was at midnight Mass on Christmas of 1918. This was a bittersweet moment for her because she realized she would never play the organ again. She lived for almost a year beyond that. We are grateful for her devotion to God, the Motherhouse, the University, the
Seminary, and her use of and love for God’s gift of music.