Sr. Claire Saizan
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Sister Claire Saizan, retiring after 64 years as a Sacred Heart educator, is asking for a minimum of fuss.
“No credit is due,” she said in a telephone interview from her home in Grand Coteau, La. “It’s been a privilege.”
Sister Saizan, 92, was recognized after a Mass May 23 at the Academy of
the Sacred Heart in Grand Coteau commemorating the Feast of St.
Madeline Sophie.
Though best known as a French teacher, Sister Saizan has
taught English, history, Latin and math. “My pet is geometry,” she said.
She’s noted for her love of history and politics, her appreciation for
intellectual curiosity, her enjoyment of a good argument, and
especially for her love of the Society of the Sacred Heart and of her
students. “Generation after generation,” she said. “All for the glory
of God.”
Acknowledging that some changes in the world and in
religious life have brought her deep pain at times, she dismisses the
hard times with a quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “There’s a divinity
that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.”
Undoubtedly, it’s helped that she thrives on challenge.
“I have never known anyone who loved an argument so much,” Sheila
Kurtz, principal of the high school at Grand Coteau, told a reporter
for southern Louisiana’s Daily World in 1997. “She has such a tough
mind herself, and she loved to challenge students to argue with her.”
She counts among her highest compliments an encounter at Maryville
College with a young woman she had taught in Cincinnati. “What are you
majoring in,” Sister Saizan recalls asking the woman.
“You should know, Sister,” the woman replied. “You taught me history.”
Sr. Saizan and students
Academy of the Sacred Heart, Grand Coteau, LA
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Sister Saizan earned a bachelor’s degree from Loyola University, New
Orleans, in 1930 and a master’s degree from the school in 1932.
She taught for four years, from 1940 to 1944, at Villa Duchesne in St.
Louis; for two years, from 1945 to 1947 at Academy of the Sacred Heart
in New Orleans’ for 12 years, from 1956 to 1968 at Academy of the
Sacred Heart in Cincinnati, Ohio; for nine years from 1968 to 1977, at
Maryville College in St. Louis (now Maryville University).
She is ending her teaching career at Grand Coteau where it began. She’s
taught at the school for 36 years, in four stints — the first from
1938, the year she professed temporary vows as a Religious of the
Sacred Heart, to 1940. She returned for six months in 1944, again for
nine years in 1947, and for the fourth time in 1977. That time she
stayed for 25 years and saw a former student, Mary Burns, return as
headmistress.
“She made you reach for your best,” Mary Burns recalled. “She expected
the best from us, so we had to expect it from ourselves. It was
empowering.
“She could be intimidating to students, but in later
years I looked back and realized what an outstanding educator she is.”
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