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GRAFTON/BERLIN LEADER

Pioneering parish nun retires

For Sister Kenan McGowan, RSM, retirement has brought a mixed bag of feelings.

"I was sad at first, but now I think I'm happy," she remarked. "I don't have to pay bills and do those kinds of things any more, but I can stay here and volunteer and do other kinds of work."

After 46 years as parish life director at St. John Francis Regis parish in Grafton and 12 at Sacred Heart in Berlin, now merged, Sister Kenan will retire this September at the age of 75.

In an interview with The Evangelist, she recalled some of her best memories, including the opening of the new church for St. John Francis Regis parish, which first opened in 1912. 

The new building was a long time in coming for Sister Kenan: "We had been using a church that had been abandoned as an ice house around 1910," she recalled. "The church acquired it from a gentleman who had won the building on game of cards. 

"Over the years, we had a lot of problems with the plumbing and things like that and for years everybody had talked about getting a new church. I was just lucky enough to know and see we could do it."

Parish changes
The new building opened in 1996, and though the parish recently merged with Sacred Heart in Berlin to form Our Lady of the Snow parish, both worship sites remain open.

Sister Kenan also cherishes her experience with children, who have always been a big part of her life. 

In parish work, "I love the kids," she stated. "A lot of times people would say something like, 'We have more kids than people.' We've had a lot of families with a lot of kids."

Also a math teacher for 42 years, Sister Kenan taught seventh grade for nine years at St. Paul the Apostle School in Troy, Blessed Sacrament and St. Mary's in Albany, St. Mary's in Waterford and Annunciation in Ilion.

She went on to Catholic Central High School in Troy, where she taught for 33 years. It was an experience she loved and a job that she felt fit her perfectly.

To love and serve
"If you don't enjoy it, you shouldn't do it," she said of her decades in the classroom. "And I had a lot of fun teaching. I enjoyed making competition between kids."

She described herself as a teacher that liked to engage with her class.

"I liked to get kids involved in class," she explained. "We'd always have contests and things like that to make it fun."

Fun is a common theme for Sister Kenan, and now that she will be retired, she can have more of it.

"Just no pressures any more," she said when discussing what she was looking forward to in retirement. "I'll be able to do things and do them for the fun of it."

Most of all, Sister Kenan appreciates her many and varied experiences throughout her career. She singled out sacramental minister Rev. Kenneth Gregory of Our Lady of the Snow as "wonderful to work with.

"I've had a wonderful life," she concluded. "I've had a lot of fun and made a lot of good friends."

(09/17/09) [[In-content Ad]]

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