Mary Grace White:
CLASS OF 1979
Notre Dame CollegeClass of 1979
Cleveland, OH
Mary Grace's Story
It's a long way back from 1979 and the journey has been (to say the least) an interesting one. After graduation, I left the hallowed halls of NDC which at the time was a single gender college and returned to Nashville, Tennessee hoping to land a job at our local NBC affiliate as a promotions writer. When that failed to pan out, I tried several different things, but I never lost my desire to enter Religious Life. So I began to search and correspond with different communities. One such search ended with the Hawthorne Dominican Sisters a community founded by the daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne (yes the same author of The Scarlett Letter). For nearly seven years, I remained in the community whose apostolate is the care of the terminally ill cancer patient who have no means to receive the proper care elsewhere. I was a year from Final Vows when I left. It was the hardest thing I ever did and took me 10+ years to get past it. In the meantime, I went back to school and received a Nursing Degree in 1992 and worked in the field up until May of this year. The long hours and the emotional toll became too much, and my physical health began to suffer as well. But 2 years ago, I discovered a way to parlay my love for animals (specifically dogs) into a new career by becoming a certified trainer. I am in the externship portion of the course and hopefully by early next spring, I will have received by diploma. I will have a website that will be going live soon (I hope) talkthedog.com. In the meantime, I have a store on ebay(talkthedog) and a blog(talkthedog.blogspot.com). When I'm not busy with these things, I'm baking artisan ch...Expand for more
eesecakes to order and selling them.
I have a wonderful dog named "Harvey" who's just a love! He's a German Shepherd/Corgi mix and just delightful. It's just the best thing to home with him every day now. I've always wanted to take my dog to work and now I can!
For those who remember Sr. Mary Electa (she has returned to the use of her Baptismal name Madeline) she just arrived in Rome last week and will be there for the next two years. I found her about 4 years ago in Chardon! We've been e-mailing off and on since then. My favorite hangout at NDC was in the Music Dept. Several folks thought I was a Music major,but no I was an English major. Sister was just and still is a good friend and a wonderful mentor. I've seen her once since graduation, and would love to see her again; but unless I am able to fly to Rome in the next couple years, it'll have to wait.
My favorite thing to do is kayaking. I bought a flat water kayak back in '98 and go whenever the weather is favorable. This past summer was a windy and wet one so there was very little window of opportunity to go out. I love to paddle across the lake and just glide along the bank and look for wildlife. I've seen turtles, racoons, a fox, deer, skunks, and I think beaver. I even had a racoon try to join me for lunch one day, but I shooed him off. I've been very fortunate to have had all the opportunities that have come my way and am looking forward to what 2010 will bring my way. In this beautiful season of Advent, let us not forget why we celebrate the season. It's time to slow down, take a deep breath and listen to what is deepest in our souls.
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