Junior communications major Tess Hayes will be releasing her podcast “The Stories of our Sisters: A Living History” on March 1, available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Hayes said her podcast is “an undertaking in oral history,” to record sisters in the convent and the stories of their lives. Throughout the process, Hayes said she has become friends with many of them.
“It’s hearing their stories as who they are living. So often we read books, biographies, but this is kind of a live autobiography where you actually get to hear the personal account,” Hayes said.
She began working on this project the fall of her sophomore year. The first steps involved talking with faculty and professors. Hayes specifically thanked Jessica Coblentz, an associate professor of religious studies and theology as well as gender and women’s studies.
“I’ve been really grateful for her and her mentorship and for every conversation that we have. She’s the one that’s been my shepherd,” Hayes said.
This project was inspired by Hayes’ experience growing up in Dallas where her family attended Ursuline Academy. She said her family was close with a few of the Ursuline sisters that worked at the school, in particular Sr. Peggy Hill.
“She would sit us around the table and would just tell us stories all day long. She would really instill in us the importance of a story and would share the history of the school itself in addition to what it would mean for us to be students there,” Hayes said. “That’s exactly what I’ve found with these sisters is they’ve told the story of Saint Mary’s as well as their own so it’s in tandem, and it shows us what it means to be Saint Mary’s students.”
The name for the podcast sprung from from Hayes’ mother, who made a comment about the Sisters of the Holy Cross, which Hayes said inspired her to consider the sisters as the living history of Saint Mary’s College.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students at the college lost much of their contact with the sisters as they tried to keep the convent safe. Through the podcast, Hayes is hoping to bring their stories back to the community.
“We deserve to connect with them just on a human connection basis, and they also deserve that from us. Connecting is the most important thing,” Hayes said.
In addition to bringing the stories of the Sisters of the Holy Cross out to the students and Saint Mary’s community, Hayes said she will be using her findings from the podcast in her senior comprehensive project.
For her listeners, Hayes said “there’s so much wisdom that the sisters have to give, that I just hope that people will have open minds and open hearts to receive what they have to say.”
Looking to the future, Hayes said she is interested in continuing her project and possibly expanding it to include sisters of Holy Cross congregations abroad. She said she is also considering doing a podcast or entire season dedicated to telling the stories of the previous generations of sisters at Saint Mary’s College, such as Mother Pauline, Mother Angela and Sr. Madeleva Wolff.
“Whether it be a 70-year-old sister or the freshman down the hall, I think that really leaning in to other people’s stories helps us learn and we get to learn from each other,” Hayes said.
