Dorothy Moore was born in Chicago on January 26, 1906. The second of six children born to Charles and Adeline (Smith) Moore, who were also born in Chicago. “We were four girls and two boys, and had a happy home life where our faith was firm and lived. We all attended Catholic grade and high school, and my early desire to be a Dominican was not in God’s plan for me.” 

Instead Dorothy attended the Chicago Normal School for teachers’ training for two years. Upon completion, she was a substitute teacher for about three years until she obtained a permanent assignment. Dorothy taught in the Chicago public schools for the next twenty years. She attended the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado, for one summer, and took various day and evening classes. She obtained a Ph.D. in English literature from Loyola University in Chicago.

During her years of teaching, Dorothy was not free to enter the convent, as her family needed her support. One after the other of her three younger sisters entered the Benedictine Sisters at St. Scholastica in Chicago. Her oldest brother married, and her younger brother entered the Jesuit novitiate. He was ordained and his first mass at the parish church was a joyous occasion. Only a year after ordination, he died quite suddenly. Dorothy always believed that this shock precipitated her mother’s death a year later of a heart attack.

Sister Mary Jerome wrote, “For years I had read Tabernacle and Purgatory, and now God knew I was free to follow His call. It was Clyde for me. My sisters asked, ‘Don’t you want to come with us?’ I love them very much, but one must do what the heart prompts. There must be ‘no shadow of turning.’ No, it was my great love for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament that drew me to Clyde, where I was so grateful to be accepted at the age of 40.” Dorothy entered at Clyde on October 7, 1946, and subsequently made her first monastic profession on September 11, 1948, as Sister Mary Jerome. She made her final monastic profession on the same date in 1953 and consecration of virgins on August 15, 1965.

Sister Mary Jerome quietly served our Congregation while being stationed in Clyde, Mundelein, Kansas City, and St. Louis. She worked mostly in the correspondence and altar in St. Louis, she wrote, “I’m so grateful to be in St. Louis where the time before the Blessed Sacrament is my great joy and happiness. Being in health care now I am happy and have great peace.”

Shortly before her death, Sister Mary Jerome enjoyed a reunion with one of her former students, Peter Thomson. She met Peter when he was only twelve years old, and she had seen great potential in him. She had encouraged him in his studies, and she continued to exert a positive influence on him throughout his school years. Eventually he graduated from Harvard University. He had been going through some old letters in his attic when he came across a letter she wrote to him in 1946, telling him of her decision to enter the convent and encouraging him to write even though she would not be able to answer him. He wrote for a while, but eventually it became difficult to continue a one-sided correspondence. Now after 55 years he took a chance and wrote to the address she had given him back in 1946. Upon contacting our sisters at Clyde, he learned that she was still living and residing at our health care center in St. Louis. He came for a visit in October, just one month before her death. At the age of 94, Sister Jerome leaned over and asked Peter if his wife knew he was here!

Gradually growing weaker, Sister M. Jerome slipped away in her sleep at 2:20 am on November 26, 2000. Our faithful night nurse was checking on her every ten minutes, and when she returned to her room, Sister had already taken flight heavenward. The Mass of Christian Burial was in the St Louis Monastery chapel on November 28, with burial in Mt. Calvary Cemetery at Clyde on the following day.