Latest news with #LourdesHighSchool
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Ancy Morse, who died May 3, relied on resilence, humility to carve a ground-breaking legal career
May 31—ROCHESTER — In the early stages of Ancy Morse's legal career, people had a hard time wrapping their heads around the concept of a woman attorney. On her first job, Morse walked into a conference room to meet with a client, who thought she was there to bring him coffee. When Morse explained to the elderly man that she was his attorney, the man was incredulous. "By God, now I've seen everything!" he said. Disbelief was the price Morse paid in forging a legal career that had few antecedents. In the early 1960s, Morse became the first female attorney to practice law in Olmsted County. In 1983, she became the first female district judge outside the Twin Cities area when she was appointed by then-Gov. Rudy Perpich. Morse died May 3, 2025, at the Homestead Senior Living Facility in Rochester after a battle with cancer, according to her obituary. During her 16-year tenure as judge, Morse presided over thousands of cases involving child custody battles, divorces, sex abuse cases and civil disputes. But the case with which she became inextricably linked was the 1989 trial involving David Brom, a 16-year-old Lourdes High School student who killed his parents, a younger brother and sister with an ax while they slept in their rural Rochester home. Morse sentenced the teen to three consecutive life prison terms, acknowledging to a packed courtroom the emotional agony and difficulty in overseeing such a fraught case. Calling the case "inexplicable and unfathomable," Morse struck an undercurrent of sympathy in her ruling, calling Brom a "seriously mentally ill boy, driven to despair by a pathetically sick and depressed mind." She felt the law had failed to keep pace with advances in psychiatry and later joined the defense in vainly seeking changes to the state standard governing mental illness defenses. In charting her way in a male-dominated field, Morse had to get used to the many double-takes she triggered in people who had never seen a woman attorney before. In law school at the University of Minnesota, Morse was one of six women, according to a July 16, 1973, Rochester Post Bulletin article. Her classes were populated with returning veterans from World War II on the GI bill. It could be a tough crowd. It was made all the more formidable and intimidating when the professor closed the door at the start of class and declared the day "Ladies Day," meaning only women would be allowed to answer questions "She told me there was never time for pettiness, just perseverance," said her son Mark Morse said. When she was admitted to the bar, it was Morse and 166 men who took the oath. A woman attorney just didn't compute for many at the time. Early in her career, Morse represented a woman in a divorce proceeding, but the judge mistook Morse as the woman seeking the divorce. When trying to serve legal papers on a party in the jail, the guards suspected her of being a girlfriend of one of the inmates and called her office to check, according to the book "Taking The Lead: Rochester Women in Public Policy," which devotes a chapter on Morse. Morse's dream of practicing law had taken root as a young girl growing up in International Falls. Her grandfather, Aad Tone, had been a pioneer lawyer in Koochiching County whom she would accompany on trips to the courthouse. Being raised in a small town, Morse was taught to fish and hunt. In school, she had free reign to participate in a wide variety of activities and pursuits. "...and a woman will lead them," yearbook staff from International Falls High School prophetically inscribed next to her name. Her mother, Esther Olson Tone, had aspired to be a lawyer, but those dreams were dashed when Esther's Scandinavian parents' savings were looted by a banker. So those ambitions were transferred to Morse. "Maybe, I just got tired of people saying, 'You'll never do it,'" Morse told one reporter. A profoundly formative chapter in her life was her selection as one of four senior Girl Scouts to represent the U.S. at an international conference. Morse joined the Girl Scouts in the third grade and remained active for decades. The conference she attended was held in Switzerland and changed her life. She no longer felt like she was from a small town. She felt that she belonged anywhere. "It emboldened her. It gave her a community of women to support and reassure and advocate for," said a daughter, Kelly Nowicki. As she pursued her legal education, Morse often found support in a small network of men, including her uncles and her future husband, Bob Morse. Both had attended grade school together. Bob Morse would stay after class to wash down the blackboards. But beyond earning some brownie points, Bob hoped to catch the eye of the teacher's blonde-haired daughter, Ancy. Bob attended the University of Minnesota along with Ancy, becoming a psychiatrist at Mayo Clinic. After working as a lawyer for many years, Morse was encouraged by her legal peers to apply for a judge vacancy. Mark Morse said his mom didn't expect to get the appointment, but thought it would be an opportunity to let Olmsted County know that "there is a female attorney in town." To her surprise, Perpich picked her. "She was often encouraged by others to do things that she didn't necessarily think she was ready for — or good enough for," Mark Morse said. "She was very humble that way." A lifelong Minnesota Vikings fan, Morse and her family were season ticket holders for many years. A favorite story Mark Morse likes to tell is how Mark and his wife attended a Vikings game and were seated behind his mom and dad. Morse didn't like the arrangement and proceeded to convince the 30 or so other attendees in her section to scoot two seats over, including two people at the end of the row to move back one row, so Mark and his wife could sit down next to her. "She was very confident in what she felt needed to happen and very capable of making it happen," Mark Morse said. Mark Morse said he never saw his mom betray any umbrage or resentment at the slights she encountered in her legal career. As she advanced in her career, she became a role model and support to other women professionals. "You hear a lot of people demand respect. She never did," Mark Morse said at her funeral. "Her approach was the Nike of women's rights; she just did it. And that humility, tied with performance, was an amazing message to others."
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
After 30 years, Fr. Jerry Mahon leaves legacy of hope, faith and charity at St. John the Evangelist
May 26—ROCHESTER — Thirty years is a long time to be in the same job. For a Catholic priest in the Winona-Rochester diocese, it's practically unprecedented. So, when Fr. Jerry Mahon steps down as pastor at the Co-Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist on July 1, 2025, he will be stepping down from a job he's held for more than 30 years, a job that has shaped his life but also a job where he has helped shape the Catholic community both at St. John's and in Rochester as a whole. "We have a policy of 12 years to move," Mahon said, speaking of his longevity at the church. "The bishop said next year is your term ... and then the relocation of Lourdes High School came up, and lay people submitted my name to lead the campaign, which was millions of dollars. So the bishop said, now you need to stay." Then a change of bishops came, and the new bishop told him to stay. Priests, he said, are supposed to retire at 68. "I'm going to be 80, so I stayed a little longer than they anticipated." Mahon was born at Saint Marys Hospital and raised on a farm north of Rochester. He graduated from Lourdes High School and attended church at St. Francis of Assisi parish in Rochester. After high school, he felt called to serve as a priest, eventually getting ordained at St. Francis in 1971. He spent 18 years at Immaculate Heart of Saint Mary Seminary in Winona. "So, I've had longevity of my assignments," he said. After stints in Winona at the seminary and also serving as vicar general for the Diocese of Winona, then-Bishop John Vlazny installed Mahon at St. John the Evangelist in 1994. Mahon said after he's helped with renovations at the seminary and other parts of the diocese, the bishop made St. John's seem like a respite from all the construction and remodeling work he'd been tasked with in the past. "(Vlazny said) you can just go and appreciate this church building and school," Mahon said he was told. "But that isn't the way it turned out." Part of the Second Vatican Council was a directive to make churches more welcoming to the community. "We recognized the need for hospitality," he said. That meant making changes. The interior of the church was turned around — the altar is now on the east side of the space — and the former gym for the school was turned into a welcoming space with plenty of room for events and gathering. The church purchased the former Heritage Hotel, then traded that property for a Mayo Clinic property immediately west of the church to build a new gym for the school, which then was doubled in size. St. John's also added its chapel on the east side along Fourth Avenue. This, he said, proved especially popular with both the parish community and visitors to Rochester, particularly visitors to Mayo Clinic. "A major factor in our community are guests from the Mayo medical community," Mahon said. "Every day consistently, people coming to pray. "Our demographic is employment at Mayo," Mahon said. "We don't have any houses around us here for the most part. So, people get connected to us through Mayo, and we've always had a very significant relationship with the leadership of Mayo." That relationship survives because the parish has worked to always be good neighbors with Mayo Clinic. While the parish isn't a typical neighborhood parish, Mahon said one of the missions he's long overseen is tending to those in need downtown. Homeless individuals often come looking for resources. "That's been a major part of our ministry here." Mahon pointed not just to the beauty of the building as it's been remodeled, but the artwork and the music as creating a place that is both inviting and uplifting for visitors and regular parishioners. Part of that is the music ministry at St. John's. This came about due to another aspect of Mahon's spiritual life. Since 1996, Mahon has belonged to the ecclesial movement Communion and Liberation, which was founded by an Italian priest, Fr. Luigi Giussani. When Giussani died in February 2005, Mahon went to the funeral in Milan. At a dinner after the funeral, he met Sebastian Modarelli, who was then a composition student at a music conservatory in Milan. Eventually, Mahon convinced Modarelli to visit for an interview later that year, hiring him in October that year as the church's director of music and liturgy. Another newcomer that same autumn was Fr. John Lasuba, who came from Sudan. Fr. John helped the St. John's community with its support of a school that began in South Sudan, but has since been moved to Uganda due to the civil war in South Sudan. "We're educating 400 students in six refugee camps," Mahon said. "Tremendous poverty, a need for food, a need for everything. But their parents are filled with such a passion that their children get an education." The church, each year, holds a benefit dinner to raise funds for the school in Uganda, and children from St. John's school downtown often hold drives to get necessary items — shoes and backpacks, for example — for their African counterparts. Mahon said it's the concept of "going to the peripheries" that Pope Francis spoke about. He's personally visited the school in Africa "three or four times." He also has spent 31 years as a member of the Rochester Catholic Schools board of trustees, serving on the board when the independent parish schools joined to form under one administrative umbrella. Mahon said all the renovation that brought physical change to the building of St. John's generated a strong community. "I'd say they go together," he said. "The purpose was to move us toward a greater sense of community and partnership with the city and hospitality." What will he miss when he's no longer at St. John's every day? "A hundred things," he said. But it comes down to relationships, administering the sacraments and watching as the community he's been a part of changes as new students, new Mayo Clinic employees and new visitors call St. John's home — or a home away from home. On a recent weekend, he said, a couple approached him to say they'd heard he was retiring. They explained that they came every year for a checkup, and when in Rochester made sure to visit St. John's. "I had an opportunity for different ministries," he said, citing his time a vicar general and with the seminary in Winona. "I love being a priest, and I have loved the gift of being here, and so my heart is filled with gratitude." As for his 54 years in the priesthood, he said, "I really was called to be a priest. It isn't as if it's been a kind of struggle. It's been a joy because it's what I was called to be. ... It's a gift. It's a grace, honestly."
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Gov. Tim Walz highlights Mayo's $5 billion Unbound project: 'You're seeing a transformation'
Apr. 14—ROCHESTER — Outfitted in hard hat and safety vest, Gov. Tim Walz stood in the middle of the construction zone, ground zero of a physical transformation that will reconfigure and remake Mayo Clinic and downtown Rochester as part of Mayo's $5 billion expansion project. "You're seeing transformation in the physical aspect of Rochester, but transformation globally on (the way) health care is delivered," Walz said. The project is still in its earliest stages. Surrounding Walz and assorted dignitaries that included Mayo bigwigs, local politicos and lawmakers was mostly upheaval. To the north, the old Lourdes High School was being clawed down. Roads were blocked off. Mayo's Ozmun East was gone. Ozmun West was waiting for the wrecking ball. Where Walz stood will rise an innovative care facility in the next year or so, one of five buildings that will reshape the Rochester skyline. During the brief press conference, Walz touted the construction jobs created, the improvement in health care through AI and technology, the lives improved and saved. Mayo Clinic is investing $5 billion to remake the downtown campus, and $585,000 in public dollars funded Destination Medical Center, a public-private initiative. "We're getting the payback in terms of improving people's lives," Walz said. Rochester Mayor Kim Norton said a "team of folks worked really hard to come up with a vision about what is the future of Rochester, what are we going to become?" In the beginning, many people didn't know what that would mean or look like. That vision is becoming more concrete and real. "It wraps around this growth and development," Norton said. "I couldn't be more excited to have these careers and facilities that's going to transform health care." Walz's trip to Rochester was part of a statewide tour of multi-million-dollar economic development projects. Walz also toured a $31 million manufacturing and research facility in Plymouth, Minn., and a $200 million expansion of tissue paper maker Sofidel in Duluth, Minn. DFL Rep. Kim Hicks of Rochester said the physical changes signify an investment in "future doctors, in future health care professionals" who will take the knowledge and training they get at Mayo and spread it to other areas "to make lives better for all people." Asked whether the on-again, off-again tariffs President Donald Trump has imposed on countries has had any impact on construction projects through higher cost in materials, Walz said he hadn't seen evidence of any impact so far. "At this point in time, no (there hasn't been an impact)," Walz said. "But I think any time you have a construction project, any time you have the amount of goods that are coming in, medical equipment, whether in the United States or elsewhere, anything that adds to the confusion or lack of stability, I don't believe can be a good thing." Mayo President and CEO Gianrico Farrugia was not present during the press event, but Walz said he spent part of the morning talking with Farrugia about the future of health care. "We spent a little bit of time talking about the transformation we're seeing and the importance of artificial intelligence ... to improve the quality of life for a patient and improve their outcomes," Walz said.
