Sister Michael Marie Friedman knew she was on the right path when she left her home in the boot of Missouri to go to boarding school, and eventually a convent, in Kentucky.
“The calling wasn’t a tap on the shoulder,” she said. “It was just a feeling that I needed to do.”
More than four decades later, Sister Michael is the principal of St. James School, Hardin County’s only Catholic school. Sister Michael oversees nearly 400 students in preschool through eighth grade.
Sister Michael wakes up at nearly 5 a.m. to eat oatmeal and pray over a tiny pine table in her kitchen.
An hour later, she switches on the lights in St. James and puts on a pot of coffee for her staff. Behind stacks of paper and a row of videotapes, Sister Michael reviews test scores, orders Christmas presents for her staff and checks e-mail – all before directing traffic and helping students enter the school safely.
Meetings, phone calls and occasional stints as a substitute teacher fill the rest of Sister Michael’s morning and afternoon.
Twelve hours after the start of her day, she makes the three-block drive to her home. There, she watches the news, reads the paper and eats a TV dinner while fielding calls from staff, friends and family.
“This is what I do,” Sister Michael said. “I come home and deal with everyone’s issues.”
Sister Michael, the only Ursuline sister in the area, knew that her calling would mean a life of sacrifice.
“I view it as a blessing,” she said, “not as giving up a lot of things.”
