Sister Bernadette Young can’t remember a time when she didn’t love to learn. A native of New Philadelphia, Ohio, she attended Sacred Heart Elementary and then St. Joseph’s High School in neighboring Dover, Ohio. She was a good student, who loved and respected each of the Sisters of Divine Providence who taught her. According to Sister Bernadette, they made her think. In 1946, at the age of 20, she joined her older sister, Sister Muriel, in religious life, becoming a Sister of Divine Providence.
It seemed natural that Sister Bernadette would become a teacher. She earned a bachelor’s degree in education from Duquesne University and a master’s degree in guidance and counseling from the University of Dayton. She went on to teach at St. Cecelia in Rochester, Pennsylvania, followed by years at St. Mary’s in Beaver Fall and St. Martin’s in Pittsburgh’s West End neighborhood. She also taught eighth grade at St. Cecelia in Glassport, where she is remembered as a kind and gentle teacher who expected much from her students. She spent a number of years as a teacher/guidance director at Bishop Guilfoyle High School in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
It had long been the dream of the Community to establish a college that would reflect the values of its co-founders, Bishop Wilhelm von Ketteler and Mother Marie de la Roche. On the journey toward making that dream a reality, Sisters were educated in a number of disciplines necessary to operate an institution of higher learning. In the mid 1950s, Sister Bernadette interned in the field of college administration at Marillac College in St. Louis. In 1963, when the dream of La Roche University became a reality, Sister Bernadette was prepared to move into the position of Registrar and Dean of Admissions, developing the processes and procedures for these departments. She spent eight years in the positions, some of the time living in the University dormitory!
Sister Bernadette left the University to attend the University of Pittsburgh in pursuit of a doctorate in Foundations of Education. It was while she was writing her doctoral dissertation (John Dewey and Selected American Catholic Thinkers: 1900-1975 From Anathema to Dialogue) that she accepted an invitation that was to change her future, joining the campus ministry team. Sister Bernadette agreed to try it “for a year or two.”
For more than 30 years, Sister Bernadette ministered with enthusiasm to the many college students who crossed her path at the Newman Catholic Oratory Center in Oakland, Pa. To her, visibility was important; she could be seen walking the Chatham and Carnegie Mellon’s campuses, connecting with the students. That’s how Sister Bernadette believes that she made Providence visible. “I’m available. I listen. If I see students who are lonely or alone, I’ll sit with them and talk,” she said.
In addition to her educational ministry, which included RCIA religious instruction, Sister Bernadette provided spiritual direction, and individual and group retreat leadership. She remained healthy and active until 2006, and at the age of 80 – her desired retirement age – she left active ministry. Sister continues to stay connected to her many friends and former students through email and phone calls, and she is active in the ministry of prayer. About her influence, a former student remarked, “There are people all around the world who have a relationship with Christ as Roman Catholic because of Sister Bernadette. In our lives we meet people who plant seeds, but she spent time pruning and cultivating, too.”