Inspired by the skating nun

SHE WAS my first love. The moment struck me in the fourth grade at St. Joseph School in Keene, N.H. I was in my classroom on the second floor. The night before we'd had a freeze following a January thaw and the flooding in the parking lot had frozen solid.

It was the lunch hour and because of the ice we weren't allowed on the playground. I gazed wistfully out the window. Three sisters emerged from the convent and made their way to the parking lot. Two of the sisters appeared to be assisting the tallest sister who I thought might be injured.

These were Sisters of Mercy. They wore long black gowns from head to toe and what looked to me like giant white bibs. You could see their faces, but nothing else, not even their hair, so from a distance it was hard to tell who was who.

The sisters pushed the tall sister onto the ice. The sister began to glide, picked up speed, twirled, her black gown expanding. Long before the movie "The Flying Nun," I had grasped the concept. It took me a full minute to realize that the sister was ice skating.

I had this great feeling and I didn't want to tell anybody about it, just wanted to savor it and so I have for more than half a century.

Then a few weeks ago I was talking to my cousin, Anne Vaccarest, a Sister of Mercy in Manchester, N.H. The sisters were celebrating their 150th year in New Hampshire.

I told Cousin Anne my story of falling in love with the sister on the ice, who I thought was Sister Charles. Cousin Anne made a couple of phone calls, and I learned that my flying nun was actually Sister Gregory, who had been my favorite teacher. Of all my teachers at St. Joe's, she was the only one left. I knew I had to see her.

We met the next day at her elderly housing apartment in Portsmouth, N.H. I found Sister Gregory quite stylish, wearing dark slacks and a bright red top, curly white hair short but nicely coiffured. The apartment was small but neat and bright with Christmas decorations. Penny, the cat, ignored my presence and remained sacked out.

"We have two sisters in this building, the grand lady upstairs and me, the noisy one," Sister Gregory said with a laugh. She pointed, "That's my prayer corner where I say my breviary, but I have to get there before Penny does."

"I didn't know you could skate," I said.

"Of course I could skate - I'm from Berlin [New Hampshire]."

Sister Gregory is the daughter of a couple born in Ireland, who came to the States via Canada.

Inspired by Sister Celine, a nun "with a wonderful sense of humor," Isabelle Pickford at age 24 left a good job in the office of Brown paper mill for life as a Sister of Mercy. She has since obtained a master's degree in education.

"It was absolutely the best thing for me," she said. "I've never had a moment of regret."

Sister Gregory is 84. She retired only last year, but she's still very active, especially with STOP (Sisters Together Oppose Poverty).

The key word for the Sisters of Mercy in STOP is "together." The sisters have a tremendous camaraderie. Though they no longer live together in a convent, but in separate apartments, they still work together and keep in close touch. Once a year, 15 or so Sisters of Mercy in New Hampshire congregate for a special occasion to visit and celebrate. The day is Super Bowl Sunday. Who would have guessed?

The order, sometimes called the "walking sisters" because they did much of their work outside the convent, have a history of service, teaching children, teaching the illiterate, and helping the poor. However, today few young women take the vows.

The sisters are not quitting. They might not be young, but they're strong and want to continue to serve. Their motto for the year: "Sisters of Mercy in New Hampshire: 150 years - An Unfinished History."

Ernest Hebert is a professor of English at Dartmouth College and the author of 10 books.