One Tough Nun Comments

Timmy McGinty had many important teachers over the years but the one who changed his life was Sister Coleman, who taught him in 8th grade back in 1952. She prepared Timmy to thrive in high school and, if a scholarship became available, perhaps in college as well. It's lucky for him she worked so hard because another nun might have given up on him. After all, he was 'incorrigible' (according to one of his previous teachers) and the only thing he did well was spell, punctuate, write sentences and compose complete paragraphs. Otherwise, he was fairly useless academically. His main delight was mischief. In that field, he had no peer among his classmates.

Like many of the 16 nuns housed in the convent near the school, Sister Coleman was an immigrant from Ireland. She had been brought to Chicago, Timmy learned later in life, because she could manage roughhouse children, many of them the offspring of blue-collar immigrants. Couth, you might say, was not rampant among the otherwise decent people in that neighborhood. Fathers worked as laborers, although a few managed to become policemen or firemen. Mothers were homemakers although some took in laundry to make a few dollars.
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