Benedictine Sister Mildred Wannemuehler retires at St. Agnes Parish

By Mary Ann Wyand

NASHVILLE—She is often called Sister Agnes.

Benedictine Sister Mildred Wannemuehler relaxed on a porch swing on the deck of the convent at St. Agnes Parish in Nashville on June 8 and laughed about how many times people have addressed her by the parish saint’s name during the past 19 years.

“They do call me Sister Agnes until I correct them,” she said, smiling. “I tell them, ‘No, I’m Sister Mildred at St. Agnes.’ ”

As the pastoral associate from 1986-98 and parish life coordinator from 1998-2005, Sister Mildred served St. Agnes parishioners, Nashville residents, tourists and low-income families in Brown County with love, compassion and hospitality rooted in her religious vocation as a Benedictine and first ministry as a teacher.

Her pastoral schedule on the afternoon of June 8 included a visit to the jail in Nashville to minister to the women prisoners incarcerated there, which she has enjoyed as much as helping low-income families through the parish’s St. Vincent de Paul ministry and with money donated to “Sister Mildred’s Fund” by parishioners.

On June 12, she retired from pastoral ministry at the 360-household parish in the Bloomington Deanery. On June 13, she moved home to Our Lady of Grace Monastery in Beech Grove, where she plans to keep busy with spiritual direction, retreat presentations and other ­ministries.

St. Agnes parishioners honored Sister Mildred by dedicating a new Marian shrine near the two-year-old church in her honor during a June 12 farewell celebration. A plaque on the base of the statue of Mary includes the message “We remember how she loves us.”

Parishioners also established an endowment for “Sister Mildred’s Fund” to provide ongoing assistance to the poor.

It’s not easy to say goodbye to the people, parish and county that have become so much a part of her life during the past two decades, Sister Mildred said, but now that St. Agnes Parish finally has a new and larger church she believes it is the right time for her to retire and go home to live with her Benedictine sisters.

“I entered the order at Ferdinand, Ind., in 1947,” she said. “I made my first vows on June 13, 1949, on the feast of St. Anthony so that’s a special day for me [to retire to the monastery]. I’m leaving three days less than 19 years. I came here on June 16, 1986.”

Holy Cross Sister Eileen Flavin is leaving a leadership position with her congregation in South Bend, Ind., to minister to St. Agnes parishioners as the new parish life coordinator. Her appointment is effective on Aug. 24.

“I’ve had two wonderful priests to work with,” Sister Mildred said about Msgr. Paul Koetter and Father William Stumpf, who were assigned to St. Agnes Parish during her years there.

“They have both been very encouraging and very respectful of whatever I could do,” she said. “Of course, to this day, they still tease me about being a teacher. I was 27 years in the classroom.”

Before beginning her ministry at St. Agnes Parish, Sister Mildred served as a middle school and secondary school teacher at Catholic schools in her hometown of Evansville, Ind., then taught mathematics and religion at the former Our Lady of Grace Academy in Beech Grove and at St. Anthony of Padua School in Clarksville.

In a June 14 telephone interview, Msgr. Koetter—now the pastor of St. Monica Parish in Indianapolis—said he always described Sister Mildred as “a teacher from the top of her head to the bottom of her toes.”

She assisted Msgr. Koetter as pastoral associate for 11 years and helped Father Stumpf, the current sacramental minister and priest moderator, as parish life coordinator for seven years.

“I think it was a blessing on both sides,” Msgr. Koetter said of her appointment. “I think it was a wonderful ­experience for [Sister] Mildred, and I think that the community flourished with her. She put her heart and soul into the whole experience. I think her impact—not just upon St. Agnes, but upon the whole Brown County community—was major. She served on many committees for the town of Nashville and the county. I think she had a huge impact over 19 years.”

Father Stumpf praised Sister Mildred for her “extraordinary service” to St. Agnes Parish and the Brown County community for nearly two decades.

“She’s been an absolutely wonderful parish life coordinator,” Father Stumpf said. “She really was very much the heart and soul of St. Agnes Parish. It was her spirit and drive that enabled us to build the new church, and she will be greatly missed, not only by the folks at St. Agnes but also by the community of Brown County.”

Sister Mildred said she has “been blessed in so many ways” with wonderful ministries through the years.

“I’ve loved everything I’ve ever done,” she said. “It’s all been gift. Everything I do, I try to do with God, seeing people as God’s creation. About 30 percent of what I do is ministry to the poor. I love the poor and the ladies at the jail. I’ve been going there every week visiting with them for 19 years, and I’ve worked with the [Brown County] Sheriff’s Department on some interesting cases through the years.”

During her sabbatical studies in California in 1985, Sister Mildred read in The Criterion that Providence Sister Marsha Speth was leaving her position as pastoral associate at the Nashville parish so she inquired about this ministry opportunity.

“It’s the best group of people I’ve ever met,” she said of St. Agnes parishioners. “I can honestly say that I’ve never asked them to do anything they haven’t done. But I didn’t ask them to do anything that I wouldn’t do with them.”

Fifteen years ago, Sister Mildred started presiding at a Communion service on weekday mornings, and enjoyed sharing her love of the Eucharist, Scripture and prayer as the focus of daily life.

“I started my day with about 15 to 20 people who came for morning prayer,” she said. “They’re a prayerful people, and they love the poor. They’re talented people. I can’t praise them enough. Our reputation here in the county is for what we do for the poor … and for our hospitality to visitors. In the summertime, we have tourists by the bushels.”

Weekend Masses at the former log church on Highway 135 and now the new church on McLary Road are supplemented by outdoor liturgies on Saturdays from May through October at nearby Brown County State Park.

“One time a deer came right down the aisle during an outdoor Mass at the park,” she recalled. “Father Koetter said, ‘I won’t bother him. I’ll just walk down the other aisle.’ It’s wonderful here with all God’s creatures.”

Sister Mildred celebrated her 75th birthday on March 16 and decided it was time to return to the monastery.

“My life has been very full,” she said. “I’ve thought about this all year. The new church is built. It was finally constructed on the 13th site we looked at over 15 years. Now I’d like to take my last quarter [of my life] a little bit more contemplatively. I’m ready to go back home and enjoy community life. I hope to do a few things with the senior sisters and to do workshops and retreats. I’ll still work with people. I’m just recycling.”

She served her community as prioress from 1977-85 and had to oversee the closing of the academy in 1978 due to low enrollment, which she described as “one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in my life.”

In 1981, the Sisters of St. Benedict started the Benedict Inn Retreat and Conference Center ministry in the former academy buildings.

“God always brings good out of troubles,” she said. “Always. The retreat ministry has been wonderful.”

Sister Mildred also served as formation director for her community from 1964-67 and continued that ministry while teaching at the former academy.

Benedictine Sister Carol Falkner, prioress of Our Lady of Grace Monastery in Beech Grove, said in a recent interview that “Sister Mildred has loved her years at St. Agnes in Brown County, and she’s had the opportunity to get to know the parish well. She will certainly miss the parishioners and the many, many guests—the tourists—who have come there.”

Sister Carol said she thinks Sister Mildred’s greatest accomplishment there was to serve in an administrative capacity during the construction of the new church, which was dedicated on Nov. 23, 2003, during a eucharistic liturgy celebrated by Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein.

Being able to help complete the new church building “gives her great joy,” Sister Carol said. “She is a very pastoral person. Another part of her ministry which she has most enjoyed is to be able as a Benedictine to take the monastic charism of prayer, work and hospitality to the people of Nashville.”

Sister Mildred invited several parishioners to become Oblates of St. Benedict, Sister Carol said, “so that [Benedictine] spirituality perhaps can continue among the parishioners at St. Agnes in Brown County.”

Sister Carol said Sister Mildred also was well-known for her dedication to fostering ecumenism and serving the community in Nashville and Brown County.

“She has done a great deal to bring about good relationships among all the Churches,” Sister Carol said, “and also to be a person who really was there for the poor of the county. She always enjoyed that work—and also with those who are in the prison there—so her legacy is great. We wish the best to the person who will be following her.” †