Sister Paul James Villemure, OP 1928-2023

Sister Paul James Villemure, OP
                                           1928-2023
                                           Of the approximately 2,800 people who called the
                                           village of Newberry, Michigan, home in the mid-
                                           1940s to early 1950s, three of them became Adrian
                                           Dominican Sisters. Sister Paul James Villemure was
                                           the second of them, after Sister Nadine Foley. (Sister
                                           Cora Campbell was the third.)

                                           Lois Marie Villemure was born November 28, 1928,
                                           to Joseph and Alma (Benard) Villemure. Joseph, the
                                           town’s postmaster, brought two boys, Evar and
                                           Robert, into his marriage to Alma in 1920. Joseph’s
                                           first wife, Eva, had died in 1919, just days after giving
                                           birth to a stillborn baby. After Joseph and Alma
                                           married, twelve more children came into the family:
Philip, Phyllis, Marcella, Theresa, Lois, Joseph, Charles, Irene, Matthew, Thomas, Paul
James (who died in infancy), and Peter.

From an early age, Lois knew she wanted to be a teacher, inspired by the excellent education
she received in the Newberry public school system. Her first contact with the Adrian
Dominican Sisters came through the catechetical center several of the sisters operated at her
parish, St. Gregory, but it was due to her later time at Siena Heights College (University) that
she truly knew she was being called to religious life.

When she was a senior at Newberry High School, her mother informed her that if she wished
to go to Siena Heights, there was a woman who would pay her tuition. Although she did not
know this at the time, as it so happened her benefactor was the same woman who had
funded Sister Nadine Foley’s tuition.

Lois spent her first year at Siena Heights as a work-study student, washing dishes in the
dining room. That arrangement actually got her college career off to a rather inauspicious
start; she related in her October 2016 “A Sister’s Story” video that she arrived in Adrian after
an all-night bus trip and went into the dining hall, only to hear her name called by Sister
Petronilla Francoeur, the languages professor at that time. When she presented herself
before Sister Petronilla, she was scolded because she was supposed to be washing dishes –
“and I had just arrived!” she said in the video.

She entered the Congregation in January of her senior year, 1950, and completed her degree
that June with a mathematics major. Her first teaching experience actually came as a
postulant when she was sent to Visitation School in Detroit for a short time to fill in for a Sister
who was ill. In August, she received the habit and her religious name, which was in honor of
the younger brother who had died.

In 1951, after her canonical novitiate year, Sister Paul James was assigned to teach
mathematics at San Antonio (St. Anthony) High School in Guayama, Puerto Rico. She

immediately knew that the island heat was not going to be to her liking, saying in her “Sister’s
Story” that after the plane landed and the passengers were disembarking onto the tarmac,
she got to the plane’s door, felt the blast of heat coming off the pavement, and said, “I’ll never
survive.”

But she did, and in fact greatly enjoyed her time at St. Anthony School. Among her students
there were Rosario Martín, who would go on to enter the Congregation; Rosario’s sister
Carmen, who became Sister Marie Pilar but later withdrew; and their older brother Sammy.

In the remembrance she shared at Sister Paul James’ wake, Sister Rosario described her
teacher – who was only ten years older than she was – as “beautiful, energetic, kind, loving,
and very thorough as a teacher. … Besides teaching all the math, Sister Paul James
enlivened our school with extracurricular activities. She started a tennis club [and] had a
yearly tennis tournament in the school. After school she taught ballroom dancing, jitterbug,
and roller skating for a show at San Antonio High. She was good!”

Sister Paul James left Puerto Rico in 1954 to spend the next four years earning her Ph.D. in
mathematics at Notre Dame and then was part of the first faculty at Regina Dominican High
School in Wilmette, Illinois, for one year (1958-1959). Then, she embarked on what would be
fifty-four years of ministry at Barry College (University) as part of the mathematics faculty,
thirty-one of those years as department chair.

Sister Linda Bevilacqua, as a Barry student, had Sister Paul James as a professor and later
held positions at Barry, including as its president, that overlapped with Sister Paul James’
time on the faculty. She wrote in a tribute for Sister Paul James’ wake:

    During her tenure as a full-time Barry faculty member, Sister Paul James was
    credited with teaching twenty-seven different math courses. She also integrated
    computer technology into the math curriculum, served as the College’s Director of the
    Mathematics Program, and then as the chairperson of the Math Department in the
    College of Arts and Sciences for many years.

    Common in higher education, faculty members may request a sabbatical once every
    seven years, but Sister Paul James took only one sabbatical during her 54 years of
    ministry at Barry. The focus of her sabbatical study was the impact of developmental
    mathematics on student achievement.

    Following her sabbatical, Sister Paul James created Barry’s first developmental math
    course and the initial Developmental Math Program and supervised a Math Skills
    Clinic that continues to this day, all while teaching her assigned courses and
    administering the Math Department.

During her years at Barry, Sister Paul James accompanied her good friend and fellow faculty
member Sister John Karen Frei on several adventures. Two journeys in particular involved
assisting Sister John Karen in her research on orchids. On one of those trips, to the
Everglades, both women found themselves in waist-deep water and rather uncomfortably
close to a water moccasin, which their guide shot. The second trip, to Mexico, included a
number of exciting times, from having car trouble to having their way down a mountain

blocked by several men who needed to be convinced that the two really were religious
Sisters doing orchid research.

Sister Paul James eventually retired from full-time teaching but continued to serve as an
advisor and tutor in Barry’s Learning Center for some time. Finally, in 2013, she returned to
Adrian – but did not leave teaching behind, for she ministered as a tutor at the Adrian Rea
Literacy Center for several years.

She died at the Dominican Life Center on March 11, 2023, having attained the age of ninety-
four and in her seventy-second year of profession as an Adrian Dominican Sister.

Her dedication to the “noble profession” of teaching was recalled by everyone who provided
remembrances at her wake. Sister Linda Bevilacqua’s remembrance continued:

    While her academic credentials, expertise and achievements are clearly significant
    and laudable, Sister Paul James is fondly remembered for her dedication to the
    quality of teaching, her generosity of wisdom, forthright direction, and welcoming
    personality.

    In my various administrative positions at Barry, I was always mindful of her genuine
    care and concern for the students she advised, taught, mentored, and tutored.

    Students who majored in math or took math courses to fulfill degree requirements
    praised her for her incredible patience with them, her kindness, and her gentle
    determination to help them achieve their educational goals.

Dr. Michael Allen, Sister Linda’s successor as Barry’s president, wrote:

    Students have called Sister Paul James the best math professor they have ever had,
    a testament to her unwavering dedication to her students and her passion for
    teaching. She inspired many students with her love of math, and her legacy will
    continue to live on in the many lives she touched.

    … We are forever grateful for her service to our University and for the joy and
    passion she brought to her work each day.

Sister Evelyn Piche, who served for many years as Barry’s dean of education, not only
recalled how Sisters Paul James and John Karen were “a shining example of the true
meaning of hospitality and friendship,” but wrote this as well:

    Sister Paul James exhibited a mild-mannered approach to life which put everyone
    she met at ease. She made no demands, was never known to gossip, and never put
    anyone down. She was always about building up the Kingdom and lifting others up
    so that those who knew her rose to the challenge of continuous improvement.

    … She will always be treasured and remembered for her untiring dedication to
    cultivating young minds through education. She had a gentle way of simplifying the

most complicated mathematical concepts and operations so that they were
    understandable and unforgettable.

Sister Judith Benkert, who first befriended Sister Paul James as a freshman at Barry – and
whose “life and ministry as a Dominican became a beacon of joy for me” as their friendship
evolved and deepened over the years – preached the funeral homily.

    Today we celebrate Sister as a woman of God enfolded in God’s love. … St. Paul
    called the community at Ephesus, and by extension all of us, to “the mysterious
    purpose set forth in Christ.” Do we consider a Ph.D. in math, or wading in the
    Everglades, or volunteering at the literacy center preparing a person to pass the GED
    a mission by our God? As we heard last night, those were only a few of Sister’s many
    ministries. Again, St. Paul says, “according to the plentiful grace lavished on us.”
    Each choice she made revealed the movement of grace within her life.

Left: Graduation photo from Newberry High School, 1946. Right: Alma and Joseph Villemure,
                                   parents of Sister Paul James.

Left: Sister Paul James Villemure with the Barry University sign, 2002. Right: Left to right, Sisters
      Paul James Villemure, Jeanne Marie O’Laughlin, and Myra Jackson at Barry University.

Left: Sisters Dorothy Booms, left, and Paul James Villemure volunteer at Office Support Services at
    the Motherhouse in Adrian. Center: Sisters John Karen Frei, left, and Paul James Villemure.

Sisters John Karen Frei, Linda Bevilacqua, and Paul James Villemure.

  The Villemure siblings, posing on October 23, 1991, are: back row, from left, Charles, Thomas,
Robert, Peter, Evan, and Joseph, and front row, from left, Philip, Matthew, Phyllis, Sister Paul James,
                                   Marcella, Theresa, and Irene.

2000 Golden Jubilarians, from the August 8, 1950 Crowd are: back row, from left, Sisters Carol
Johannes, Mary Mackert, Paul James Villemure, Kathleen Sutherland, Mary Anthony Marelli, Jean
  Rosaria Fisch, Anne Elizabeth Monahan, Barbara Hubbard, Theodora McKennan, and Michael
Claire Wilson, and front row, from left, Sisters Rina Cappellazzo, Joan Marconi, Diane Erbacher,
Joan Petz, Anthonita Porta, Charlotte Francis Moser, Virginia Cushing, Michael Thomas Watson,
Mary Louise Gass, Barbara Ann Mason, and Mary Jo Sieg. Not pictured are Sisters Joan Kathleen
                 Lorencz, Joseph Eugene Fogarty, and Florence Marie Viaches.