Sister M. Fides

and her striking obituary of Joyce Kilmer

She was the first female graduate of Duquesne University (BA, 1911, MA, 1913) and first woman to receive a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh (PhD, 1923).

Isabel Shepperson was born into a Protestant family in 1867, she became Catholic in 1886 while visiting her grandparents in England. In 1888 she entered the Sisters of Mercy, professing her vows in 1891.

She taught in elementary schools in Pittsburgh before becoming one of the original faculty members of Mount Mercy College when it opened in 1929.

Sister Fides (1867-1952) was a prolific writer, authoring several books of essays, prose poems, and a screenplay on the life of St. Francis. I’m in the process of developing more biographical material on the good sister, but what first caught my attention was her striking obituary of poet Joyce Kilmer (perhaps best-known for his poems “Trees” and “The White Ships and The Red”). Kilmer was killed in action in World War I.

Here it is, as it appeared in newspapers in 1918:

Our Sunday Visitor, September 13, 1918.