A sister's embrace
CAMBRIDGE --She made certain their hair was combed, their manners were polite, and their vaccinations were in order.
She worried if they skipped lunch or failed a math test. She conjured up everything from a tutor to a winter coat if one of her kids was in need.
When they were no longer under her roof, she wrote letters of encouragement, sometimes to their college dorm rooms, sometimes to their prison cells.
Always, she sent the message that there was one woman in this world who believed in them unconditionally.
What mother has done more for her children than this sister?
This is Sister Ellen M. Powers's last Mother's Day at North Cambridge Catholic, the plucky parochial school she has led for 25 years, from the brink of collapse as a traditional archdiocesan high school to its resurgence as an independent college preparatory school with a unique corporate work-study component. This summer, she begins a leadership position with the Sisters of Saint Joseph in Boston.
When the Boston Archdiocese sent word that the school had to become financially independent by 2004 or close its doors, Sister Ellen embraced a work-study model pioneered by a Catholic school in Chicago. Today, North Cambridge Catholic High School students spend one day away from the classroom each week in an entry-level job provided by one of 68 sponsoring companies in Greater Boston. The money they make is applied directly to their tuition.
Last year, 95 percent of seniors graduated, and all of them were accepted into college, a success rate unimaginable only a few years ago.
''It is hard to think of this place without her," said Christine Sullivan Guy, who got to know Sister Ellen during regular, involuntary visits to the principal's office in the late 1980s. Christine was the last of eight Sullivan children to attend North Cambridge Catholic -- her sister, Peggy, was in my class more than a few years before Sister Ellen arrived on the scene.
Christine conceded that ''it was a little surreal" to find herself back in the principal's office in 1996, applying for a job. She is now the dean of students.
''I spent a lot of time on the bench outside her office," the self-described class clown recalled. ''It was scary, but she always treated me with respect. I was never just a troublemaker to her.
''Four of the five friends I hung out with growing up in Somerville wound up with a GED. I went to college because Sister Ellen and this school saw something in me I didn't see in myself. More than anything else, that example guides me in my work with these kids."
The small brick building on Norris Street has been incubating the dreams of sons and daughters of immigrants since it opened its doors as St. John's High, a parish secondary school, in 1921. The late House speaker, Thomas P. O'Neill Jr., is a graduate. So is his son, former Lieutenant Governor Thomas P. O'Neill 3d, now the chairman of the school's Board of Trustees and a man who jumps when Sister Ellen yells: ''Tommy!"
It was a different school then. The seats were filled with second- and third-generation Irish and Italian kids from the neighborhood; the classrooms were led by Dominican nuns in floor-length habits. But the mission of educational opportunity is no different today, when the students are Haitian, Latino, or Vietnamese, from dozens of cities and towns. And the teachers live a secular life.
Blanca Lemus, a senior headed to Regis College in the fall, sees Sister Ellen much the way Christine Sullivan did when she graduated in 1990. ''My first year, I was pretty nervous," said Blanca, who was born in El Salvador and who commutes to the school from Lawrence every day. ''I didn't know anyone. She was the principal, but she reached out to me."
The first in her family to go to college, Blanca is especially proud to be enrolling at Sister Ellen's alma mater. ''I used to go into the office and look at the Regis screensaver on her computer. Now, I am going to go there. It's unbelievable."
Eileen McNamara is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at mcnamara@globe.com. 
