Sister Rose Paula Mace, 90; brought discipline to court

"She combined the discipline of a drill sergeant with the compassion of a nun; she was not someone you would trifle with," James W. Dolan, the former first justice of West Roxbury District Court, said of his third-grade teacher, who died Monday in the Notre Dame Long Term Care Center in Worcester. She was 90.

"She was a no-nonsense teacher who could control a class of 50, but she was also delightfully warm," Dolan said. "She was quite well equipped to handle not only youngsters, but those somewhat older who had wandered down the wrong path."

Sister Mace was born in Somerville. She graduated from Emmanuel College and earned a master's degree at Boston College.

She taught at St. Mark's School in Dorchester for 13 years. She also taught at the Monsignor Patterson School in South Boston, Julie Brilliart Central High School in East Boston, and St. Gregory's High School in Dorchester.

In 1972, Sister Mace took her class at St. Gregory's to West Roxbury District Court to see justice in action. At the time, Paul Murphy, who had also had her has a teacher in the third grade, was the presiding justice.

Murphy asked her if she would like to spend the summer working with young offenders. She agreed and the work continued for 11 years.

She took the MBTA from her home at St. Mark's Convent to West Roxbury District Court, where she worked 5 1/2 days a week. She took her job home with her, often telephoning from the convent some of the people whose probation she was overseeing. "Just to say hello," as she said in a story published in the Boston Herald in 1978.

Those who failed at probation and ended up in prison or in a reformatory got personal greeting cards. "But that's not work, that's pleasure," she said.

But on the seventh day, she did not rest; Sister Mace was a nurse's aide at Carney Hospital in Dorchester, where she spent the morning bathing patients and the afternoon on the information desk.

While on duty at the courthouse, she wore a modified habit, but some at the courthouse thought even the small headdress was too much, a mixing of the roles of church and state. Dolan volunteered to speak to her.

"I made an appointment and very delicately brought up the subject," Dolan said yesterday. "But I felt just like little Jimmy Dolan back in the third grade. She gave me an earful, particularly about the Constitution."

Dolan reported back to the chief justice. "It's a battle you can't win," he said.

Sister Mace leaves three sisters, Nancy Morrison of Malden, Eleanor Dee of Carver, and Mary Clauss of Agawam.

A funeral Mass was said yesterday in Worcester.