Necrology of Sr. Pauline Higgins (Louis Of The Blessed Sacrament), SP, 2009

Necrology\nPauline Higgins, SP\n(Sister Louis of the Blessed Sacrament)\nBirth: March 13, 1914, in Sunnyside, Washington\nFather: Louis Higgins\nMother: Hannah (Puthoff) Higgins\nEntrance to Postulancy: July 9, 1932\nEntrance to Novitiate: January 18, 1933\nTemporary Profession: July 19, 1934\nPerpetual Profession: July 19, 1937\nEntered Eternal Life: December 5, 2009, St. Joseph Residence\nVigil Service: December 9, 2009\nFuneral Mass: December 10, 2009\nBurial: December 10, 2009, Calvary Cemetery, Seattle\nSurviving Immediate Family: Nieces and a Nephew\nTeaching and learning were as natural as breathing to Sister Pauline Higgins. She embraced every opportunity to learn and then to share her wisdom with others. She had a keen sense of humor that attracted others to be with her and to want her to be their mentor. She said, “To have touched but one life and to have helped it flower is reason enough to spend a lifetime in the classroom.”\nPauline entered the world one early Friday morning, just a few days before the tragedy that opened the World War I. She was one of two souls born to Louis and Hannah Higgins on March 13, 1914, in Sunnyside, Washington. She and Paul were their second set of twins. The first set of twins were Maybelle (Sister Loretta Clare) (Margaret) and Joseph Louis, born in 1911. The last two children were Agnes (1916) and Edward (1918).\nLouis Higgins was born in Texas. Hannah was born in Indiana, her family having come to America around the time of the Socialist Revolution in Germany in the 1850’s. They met each other on the occasion of a visit in the West. They married in Indiana and returned to Sunnyside, Washington, to establish their home.\nThe house in Sunnyside held many wonderful memories for Pauline. It was a picturesque place completely surrounded by a wide porch. “A pleasant place,” she said, “where during warm summer days, family meals were eaten and beds were often set up for outdoor sleeping.” Pauline recalled falling off that same porch and breaking her collar bone. This incident perhaps best explained her remarkably good posture. Her mother, determined not to allow Pauline to favor the injury while walking, relentlessly admonished her to stand up straight.The five Higgins children were close in age and often prayed, worked, and played together. Pauline once commented, “We had a great deal of fun playing together. Of course, there were many disagreements, settled for the most part according to the Bible, ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’ It took a long time to realize the value of ‘turning the other cheek,’ and a longer time to put it into execution!”\nWhen the children were ready for school, the family moved to a tract of farmland about twenty miles west of Yakima. There Mr. Higgins took up farming, an interest he had had for many years, and at which he was very successful. Through hard work and diligent study, he became well-informed and a much sought after farm consultant. Pauline said that her father “always kept the sisters in food – fresh vegetables, fruit, things they grew or bought. They did a lot to keep the larder filled.”\nWhen it was time for high school, the Higgins girls were enrolled as boarders at St. Joseph Academy, Yakima. While this was a privilege which they appreciated, Pauline said that in looking back, she realized that she lost out on some good years at home and in their neighborhood community. Nevertheless, the values her parents attributed to Catholic education were indisputable and it was through this association that she came to know the Sisters of Providence. “From the first acquaintance with the Sisters at St. Joseph’s, I said within myself, ‘That is where you will be some day.’ Now I know that the impressions received during adolescence are indelible. Of course, I never talked of it, and when it was mentioned to me, I interiorly rebelled. I think I fought some rather hard mental battles trying to ward off the inevitable. When the time did come for the parting of the ways, the hardest thing to part with was the great outdoors, the freedom and the sense of ‘aloneness with God.’ I love the trees, the hills, birds and animals, and the starry sky. The two are not incompatible, to be a vagabond at heart and serve God under the triple standard of poverty, chastity, and obedience.”\nThe Higgins family placed a high value on praying for religious vocations. During the Holy Year of 1925, the Church prescribed daily visits to four designated churches during a ten-day period. Mrs. Higgins insisted on fulfilling this mandate. No sacrifice was ever too great when the church proposed it.\nPauline graduated from the Academy in 1932 and left that summer for Seattle to enter the postulancy of the Sisters of Providence. Pauline’s older sister, Margaret, then Sister Loretta Clare, had entered the community four years earlier. At her first profession of temporary vows in 1934, Pauline received the name Sister Louis of the Blessed Sacrament, after her father.\nImmediately after profession, Pauline was assigned to Providence Academy, Vancouver, to teach seventh grade. She said that this assignment was not her finest hour. She and her siblings all grew up together, so she was not used to young children. She learned that she was better suited to teach older, more mature students. “You’re at a better level because you’re talking with people approaching adulthood, which is much more interesting.”Shortly thereafter, she was sent to St. Catherine College, St. Paul, Minnesota, to complete a Bachelor’s Degree, specializing in language, English, and Home economics. Her summers were spent studying at the University of St. Louis, University of Notre Dame, University of Washington, and Seattle University. She earned a Master’s Degree in Philosophy at Seattle University in 1946 and a Master’s Degree in Latin from the University of Washington in 1966.\nPauline taught a variety of subjects or served as librarian or debate coach in the following high schools: Providence Academy, Vancouver, WA; St. Joseph Academy, Yakima, WA; St. Patrick High School, Walla Walla, WA; Kennedy High School, Seattle, WA; Providence High School, Burbank, CA; and Monroe High School, Fairbanks, Alaska and surrounding villages. As a debate coach, she traveled with the teams to many schools in the Northwest, where her team occasionally won state championships. For three consecutive summers she taught philosophy courses at Great Falls College (University of Great Falls), Montana.\nEver since Pauline was a teenager, she had dreamed of going to Alaska. So when the community asked her to teach there, she immediately said yes. Some of her fondest memories of ministry were of her years teaching in Alaska. She vividly recalled bundling up in warm clothes and boots for the short walk across the yard from the house to Monroe High School in Fairbanks, and flying in two-seater planes between Alaska’s settlements and villages, bearing a suitcase loaded with the supplies needed to teach religion classes to Indian children in the bush or Eskimo children on the tundra.\nEver the student herself, Pauline was inspired by her Alaskan experiences to capture the rich history of the Sisters’ educational mission there. The result was her 300-page book, published in 1999, “Providence in Alaska: Sisters of Providence Education Ministry in Alaska, 1902-1978.” The book carefully chronicled the Sisters’ founding and development of two Catholic schools in Fairbanks, as well as their educational outreach ministries. Its completion was a high point in her life, bringing her roles of student and teacher together.\nHer other ministry assignments included formation team member, vocation director, candidate director, and Eucharistic minister for shut-ins. Pauline was also an excellent cook and seamstress. Sewing had always been an interest of hers since her youth, as her mother made sure the girls became competent in making clothing.\nIn 1988, Pauline retired to St. Joseph Residence, Seattle. Ever the student, she enjoyed reading nonfiction books, particularly history. She was preceded in death by her five siblings and is survived by nieces and one nephew.\nWhen Pauline was a young sister she wrote, “What the future holds God alone knows, but at the end of the journey may there be the reward of never-ending joy and peace and happiness.” Pauline, we know that you are now experiencing this eternal reward. We thank you for the life you have shared with us. “Providence of God, we thank you for all.”

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