Sister Ita on her recent 97th birthday.
By Kenneth Hesselbacher
It is springtime at the Cloisters and on May 22 this magnificent building, situated at the highest point on Manhattan and with a spectacular view of the Hudson River and the soaring Palisades on the other side of the river, will be celebrating her 78th anniversary.
Great Museums, like great ships, have always been given the female designation.
Most people are aware of the history of the Cloisters, the branch of the Metropolitan Museum dedicated to the art and architecture of the Middle Ages in Europe, build primarily through the generosity of John D. Rockefeller Jr.
This, however, is not the story of the grand old lady we call The Cloisters.
Rather, it is the story of another grand old lady living across the river from The Cloisters, high upon the Palisades.
Sister Ita celebrated her 97th birthday on May 6.
Sister Ita is a nun with the order of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace and lives and works in St. Michael’s Villa.
St. Michael’s Villa is the imposing Romanesque structure rising above the Palisades across the river from the Cloisters, which was dedicated on April 30, 1939.
Originally, the facility was the Mother House for the Order in the United States and a home for orphans in the state of New Jersey.
Today it serves primarily as an assisted living facility for elderly nuns and as an annex for St. Peter’s College in Jersey City.
As a security officer at the Cloisters, I would often gaze at St. Michael’s Villa and vow to venture across the Hudson to investigate.
Sometimes, when visitors would ask what that building was across the river, I would say that I believed that it was the Alamo, which had been taken down stone by stone from San Antonio and reassembled on the Palisades, just like the apse section of the Fuentaduena chapel, which had been taken down stone by stone in Spain and reassembled in the Cloisters!
I would then tell them that I was just kidding, this to add a small touch of humor to the serenity of the Cloisters.
Then on St. Patrick’s Day in 2007 I went to visit St. Michael’s Villa.
I explained the purpose of my visit and was told that Sister Ita would be the best person to give me a tour of the facility and the history of the Order of St. Joseph of Peace.
After Sister Ita provided me with this information, I asked if she could tell me her story and how she became a member of the order.
This proved to be a most fascinating tale.
Ita Duffy was born in County Roscommon on May 6, 1919, the first child of Michael and Elizabeth.
As was typical of an Irish family in those days, she soon had five sisters and one brother. All have passed on except for her sister Delia.
Since her father, a farmer, had such a keen interest in Irish politics, Ita would always buy a copy of the Irish Press on the way home from school.
As soon as her father was finished with the paper, she would read it.
One day she saw an advertisement to join the Order of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, which provided teaching and nursing throughout the world.
This was for Ita and she applied and joined the order on June 29, 1936, two months after her 17th birthday.
In April, 1937, Ita sailed to the United States and reported to the Motherhouse in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
She was assigned to teach the children in the orphanage.
In 1939 she was assigned to teach elementary school in the South Jersey town of Penn’s Grove where she remained until 1949.
From 1949 through 1953 she was sent to various schools throughout the state where her expertise as a problem solver was put to good use.
In 1953, she volunteered for the mission in the Philippines where she taught in the high school for the next twenty years.
In 1973, Sister Ita was assigned to the business office of St. Joseph of Peace in Jersey City.
This office was involved with the overall fundraising for the order, the orphanage and the overall community.
Sister Ita became knowledgeable in accounting practices and financial procedures.
She served as a member of the Committee of Responsible Investments, which had meetings at Riverside Church in Manhattan, another beautiful church built by the Rockefeller Family. She continued in this endeavor until 1999.
In that year Sister Ita had come full circle and was assigned to the Mother House in Englewood Cliffs to provide care and assistance to the older nuns and, as the years went by, to the younger and older nuns.
Sister Ita has done so much good in her life and, now in her 98th year, continues to radiate her own unique brand of Irish goodness.
