Imagine delaying your entrance into religious
life to pay off a car!
Upon finishing college, Sister
Peggy Nichols told her parents, Charles and Alice McMahon Nichols,
she was certain she wanted to become a Sister of St. Joseph of
Boston, but the sporty Hillman auto her father bought her needed to
be paid off. "Peggy," her father said, "Don’t worry about paying for
it, if you think God wants you."
God did. Peggy entered the novitiate of the Sisters of St. Joseph of
Boston on September 8, 1959. It has been full steam ahead since.
Born in Lewiston, ME, the
second oldest of five, Sister Peggy has a sister and three brothers,
the oldest and youngest priests. She has eight nieces and nephews
and twelve grandnieces and grandnephews, courtesy of her married
sister and brother.
Sister Peggy attended St.
Joseph Elementary School in Portland, ME. She won a scholarship to
St. Joseph Academy High School, where she attended as a sophomore.
Six months shy of her sixteenth birthday, her family moved to
Milton, MA, where she attended St. Gregory High School, Dorchester,
MA, for her junior and senior year. During this time Sister wrote a
column called Youth Speaks for The Boston Pilot.
When considering colleges,
Father John M. O’Brien, the CYO Director of her parish, St. Mary of
the Hills, told Sister Peggy about Regis College, Weston, MA. Father
O’Brien had great admiration for the Sisters of St. Joseph, who
staffed the college. So, Regis it was. "I had four wonderful years
there. I majored in English, met classmates from Puerto Rico, and
was a commuter in a car pool." Then came the Hillman.
During Sister’s senior year, her father bought her the car so she
could travel back and forth. "It was anticipated I would need it for
work as well, but I began working as Executive Director of Regis
Alumnae in mid-July, and on August 6th, I knew I wanted
to enter the Sisters of St. Joseph." In September, she did.
Sister Peggy began her
teaching career in 1962, teaching 8th grade at St.
Catherine School in Norwood, MA, and religious education afternoons
and weekends, while also taking courses in guidance and counseling
at Boston University. In 1969, she went to Matignon High School,
Cambridge, MA, where she taught religion, English and psychology.
She oversaw senior home room and the student council. Then, in 1974,
it was on to Cardinal Spellman High School, in Brockton MA, as
Director of Guidance and Counseling.
For Sister Peggy, the years
1977 through 1982 were unique ones. In 1977, she earned the
equivalent of 30 credits in the Active Spirituality for the Global
Community Program from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, OH. She was
then contacted by the Society of African Missionaries (SMA), Dedham,
MA, and accepted a job as Academic Dean and Field Education Director
of their seminary. Sister Peggy directed the college-level
seminary’s Theological Field Education Program, where seminarians
from the United States, who studied at Boston College or Boston
University, prepared for missions in Liberia. In the summer of 1979,
she spent five weeks in Liberia, flying from place to place in small
planes, and visiting the mission sites where current seminarians
would serve in the near future.
Along the way, Sister Peggy
earned a Master of Divinity degree with Distinction at the Weston
Jesuit School of Theology in 1983. The SMA Fathers offered to pay
her tuition, indicating, "We would make that our gift to the
Church."
Never one to shy away from a
challenge, Sister Peggy next became Executive Director of the
Religious Formation Conference (RFC) based in Washington, D.C. in
1983. This involved a seven-year term, serving more than 500
religious congregations of both women and men, and working, as well,
with sixteen Regional RFC Conferences throughout the country.
Sister Peggy returned to
Boston in 1990; her next position was Executive Director/Job
Developer for the Ministry Development Center for Women Religious in
Newton, MA, counseling sisters who were affected by institutional
downsizing and career changes. She networked with human resource
professionals in facilitating job prospects and developed creative
instructional workshops, affording also résumé readiness and
interviewing skills for sisters from twenty-one congregations. The
office closed in 1997.
For the next three years,
Sister Peggy was the Catholic Chaplain and Director of the Spiritual
Life Center at Bentley College, Waltham, MA, where she collaborated
with Baptist Minister, Zena Jacques, working closely with students
and staff of diverse faiths.
In 2000, she was elected to
the Leadership Council of the Sisters of St. Joseph. Her duties
included integrating ministry, housing and health care support
services for 220 Sisters of St. Joseph, while collaborating as one
of three area councilors, serving a congregation of more than six
hundred sisters.
Sister Peggy’s present
ministry, which began in 2006, is Director of the Associate Program
for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Boston. "I work with women and men
who desire to share our faith journey." Over 100 associates of all
ages come together in Boston and New Mexico to share the mission in
the context of family, parish and professional life. "They share in
our spirituality and mission."
Diversity has been a dominant
force in Sister Peggy’s life and she loves it. "I love the
diversity. The more attentive I am, the more God speaks." For those
who feel they have a call to religious life, she said: "A vocation
is an invitation. My life is based on being called and being sent."
How fortunate for the Sisters
of St. Joseph of Boston that Peggy Nichols didn’t have to pay off
her Hillman!
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