SLINGER — St. Peter’s Catholic Congregation will celebrate Sister Janet Heder at a recognition weekend after Masses on Aug. 27 and 28.
Heder attended classes at St. Peter’s when it was a four-room school. “I admired the sisters from first grade on and wanted to become a nun,” Heder said. She said becoming a nun was a simple choice for her. She received a recommendation from St. Peter’s Pastor George Jentges and the nuns in Slinger notified their order that Heder was entering their community.
“You just made the decision,” Heder said. “There was not much ado at the time.”
She has been a member of the School Sisters of St. Francis Layton Boulevard for over 70 years.
When she was 13 years old, on Sept. 1, 1943, Heder began attending classes at the convent.
She finished high school in three years because she spent a summer taking classes at Madonna High School in Chicago. “We had so much fun that summer,” she said.
Heder
Heder was received into the order in 1946 and took her final vows in 1954.
She started taking college classes at the convent and then moved on to Alverno College, which was founded by her order, affectionately nicknamed “the Franciscans on the Boulevard.”
While at Alverno, Heder also took summer classes to obtain her education credits at Clark College in Dubuque, Iowa. “I didn’t have much of summer left after that. It was six weeks of school (at Clark) and a one week retreat and then I’d get ready for school at Alverno again,” she said.
Her first assignment was teaching first-graders at St. William School in Chicago. In 1963 she started teaching at St. Matthew in Campbellsport. She had 63 first and second-grade students in her class.
“I was foolish enough to pray for one more so I would have eight rows of eight children,” Heder said.
Luckily that never happened, but she still had fun with the students under her tutelage. “There was a big hill in back of the school and we would hold hands and run down the hill,” she said.
After Vatican II in 1965 she exchanged her traditional habit for more mainstream clothing. “When we changed to lay clothes I was happy. The (habits) were kind of cumbersome,” Heder said.
During her career she taught kindergarten through eighth grade in Wisconsin and northern Illinois. “What I like most about teaching is the contact with the students — they are all different,” Heder said.
In 1976 she returned to her hometown and St. Peter’s as principal and part-time fifthgrade teacher. She was at St. Peter’s until 1985 and returned again in 1996 to teach fifth grade and art.
In 2002 Heder officially retired — sort of. She still helps out, and for a few weeks this summer she will teach religion to seventh- grade public school students.
“She has never stopped teaching and the kids who have her in class look forward to being in her class,” said the Very Reverend Richard Stoffel, pastor at St. Peter’s. “She’s just a delightful, committed woman — just a delight.”
Heder is one of 16 members of St. Peter’s parish who have taken religious vows. Her greatest pride comes from seeing former students become clergy.
A few weeks ago she had the pleasure of attending Mass said by her former fifth-grade student, Rev. Peter Lee, pastor of St. Matthew in Shullsburg, Wis.
“It was like heaven on earth. He looked so priestly — I was so proud of him,” she said.
Although she missed teaching Rev. Ryan Pruess, a pastor at Holy Family Catholic Community in Fond du Lac, she had his brother.
“He escaped me as student, but I claim him as one of my own,” she said.
“I feel blessed. She has been there for me, supporting my vocation as a priest. She is a wonderful woman and I couldn’t imagine St. Peter’s or the Slinger Community without her,” Pruess said.
When she heard a section of the Mother House on Layton Boulevard was undergoing renovation, she put her name on the list and got the OK to move there the last week in August, but now she might not have the time.
Although she uses a walker to get around, Heder also meets for breakfast with a group of women.
“In September there are so many things going on. I want to take a stained glass class and there’s the Thresheree in Richfield,” Heder said.
She will turn 93 on Sept. 30 and is hoping to attend a creative arts retreat with her Delta Kappa Gamma sorority sisters at Green Lake on Oct. 1.
