“I had a bad dream last night. In my dream, I hugged Sister Amabilis too tightly. I broke her.”

Poor Gary. He’d just met my great aunt the day before. He was stunned by how tiny she was.

As newlyweds in 1982, we made the rounds in New England to visit relatives who couldn’t make it to our wedding. It was a treat to see Sister Amabilis, who was then 87 years old.

Sister Mary Amabilis Regan was first-generation American, born of Irish-immigrant parents on October 2, 1895. She was baptized Margaret, named after her mother, Maggie.

Young Margaret was one of eleven Regan children (her oldest brother and sister, sadly, passed away before reaching school age). She was the oldest of the four surviving daughters.

Growing up, I remember hearing the most blessed of families were those who “gave” a son to be a priest and a daughter to be a nun.

I’m not sure if this was just an Irish saying, or an overall Catholic thing. Either way, it was a relief that, with each generation, there was less pressure to make this happen (me being the only daughter and all).

But Margaret, indeed, had the calling. The Sisters of Mercy welcomed her in September 1912; she professed her final vows in June 1920. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Saint Joseph College (now University of Saint Joseph) in 1956.

The story behind her choice of “Mary Amabilis” as her religious name is not, I’m sorry to say, part of our family’s lore. She’s the only Amabilis I’ve ever heard of, so I asked Mom and Dad. They didn’t know of a backstory, either.

Dad wondered if we should look to the Latin roots for the answer: “ama” meaning love and “bilis” for able. That she was.

It turns out there are two saints with the name Amabilis, one male and one female:

• Saint Amabilis of Riom acquired “a reputation for holiness” before he died in 475 AD. He is the Patron Saint of protection from Snakes, Snakebites, Wild Beasts, and Mental Disorder. His Feast Day is October 18.
• Saint Amabilis of Rouen was born to English nobility (by some accounts,the daughter of the king) and became a nun in France. Her death was in 634 AD, of natural causes. She’s also called Saint Mable; her Feast Day is July 11. (I’ve no doubt she, too, had a reputation for holiness.)

With so little information about either Saint Amabilis (I’m taking great care with my wording here, to avoid having to cipher the plural form of the name), I’m guessing there’s another story to be found.

Could there be another Sister Amabilis from earlier years? One whom young Margaret wished to emulate?

It turns out, the answer is “no.” But, with an online search for Mother Mary Amabilis, I’m pretty sure we’ve found the answer:

Mater Amabilis is one of many “descriptive titles” for Mary, Mother of Jesus. The Latin translation is Mother Most Lovable.

Our search has ended, don’t you think?

Did I mention that Sister Amabilis was a teacher? Yes, a first-grade teacher. For 58 years!

Just as I wished I could somehow find a student she’d taught, I came across this in an online magazine article called Eleven Nuns Who Changed My Life:

Thank you, Sister Mary Amabilis. Sister Amabilis was my first grade teacher. There were 64 baby-boomer children in her crowded classroom, desks closely spaced, coats doubled up on the coat hooks, with only one teacher and no teachers’ aides; and yet we learned.

Our parents—who sacrificed to send us to Catholic school, believing we would receive a superior education—were not disappointed. Sister Amabilis was never too busy to answer a question or to offer praise for a correct answer. She carried a pointer and a piece of chalk, quizzing us on the alphabet and teaching us to pray with our hands together, thumbs crossed and fingers pointing toward heaven.

When the five-year-old me got lost–forgetting whether my class sat on the left side of the church or the right–and had to sit with the second-graders at daily Mass, Sister Amabilis found me and welcomed me back to her brood.

I could hardly believe I’d found such a perfect tribute! The writer’s description matched “Mobbie,” as she was fondly called by her fellow nuns, perfectly. Well, it turns out it was written about another Sister Amabilis, who taught first-grade in Michigan. Still, it’s an amazingly good fit.

All the family members I’ve talked to about Sister Amabilis remember the same thing, “Everyone loved her.” Her tiny bird-like voice suited her diminutive size perfectly (she was well under five feet tall). Her laugh was like wind chimes, softly blowing in the breeze.

I’ll always marvel at how in the world she could keep a classroom of 60 six-year-olds under control. For 58 years!

She did it with love and kindness. She never lost her temper.

Here’s the list of parish schools where she taught over nearly six decades, all in Connecticut:

• St. Patrick, Hartford
• St. Mary, New Britain
• Sacred Heart, Waterbury
• Saint Augustine, Bridgeport
• St. Mary, Milford

That last school was in Milford, where we lived in the early 1960s. My oldest brother, Harry, attended first grade there, across the hall from Sister Amabilis’ classroom. “She watched out for me,” he remembers.

My mother loved to drop by to see her Aunt Margaret (which she pronounced “Marguerite”). Mom would bring a red rose and Sister Amabilis would let her place it on the altar in church.

Mobbie retired in 1987 and remained at her home at Mercyknoll until her death in 1991 at age 95.

… and I know in my heart that like her namesakes, she had a reputation for holiness.
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Update: Thank you to Catherine, one of Sister Amabilis’s former first graders, who shared the link to this post on the St. Mary School Facebook page. Since then, we’ve heard from dozens of her students from long ago. Thank you for all the wonderful reminiscing both in the comments (below) and on Facebook.

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