We invite readers to send short stories about the ways in which their lives have been personally blessed by the life and work of priests and religious in our diocese.

By Karina Fabian

Ask Sister Ruth Vontz about herself, and she’ll tell you she’d rather talk about God’s blessings to her.

Sister Vontz was born on a farm in Nebraska in 1919, but her mother died when Ruth was 5 and her father, unable to care for her and her four siblings, took them to the Franciscan sisters in St. Thomas to care for them.

She said growing up with the sisters was a blessing; she had an education and a strong upbringing in the faith. Although she was a teen during the Depression, she never felt she was missing anything. When she was old enough to be on her own she worked awhile, but in 1943, returned to join the sisters who raised her.

She earned a degree in biology from Duchesne College in Omaha, Neb., and taught in Colorado, Nebraska and New Mexico. “I started in elementary school, but they kept pushing me up the ladder until I was teaching vo-tech at the University of Albuquerque,” she said. While in New Mexico, she also got a degree in education.

In 1976, however, she left the Franciscans to join the Sisters For Christian Community, an order founded by Sister Liliana Kopp after Vatican II. “It’s a beautiful community, with sisters of every profession from canon lawyer to teacher. We’re magnificent and widely talented and beautiful people,” she said.

Sister Vontz’s work in the SFCC was quite different from her work in education, particularly her years in New York City, where she worked with Columbia Artists, an international company that manages the touring activities of instrumental soloists, opera singers, orchestras, dance companies, and theatrical and fine-arts productions.

She said God blessed her in this job because it gave her the chance to meet some very famous artists and indulge her love of music, particularly since Columbia sent its employees to Carnegie Hall concerts so they could experience performances in order to better recommend certain artists to their clients.

Sister Vontz said her ministry at that time was very much like the ministry of St. Francis and Brother Giles. Once, St. Francis invited Brother Giles to preach with him. They spent the day just walking around town, and at the end of the day, when Brother Giles asked St. Francis why they didn’t preach, he said, “We did. They knew when we walked by.”

“I feel I’ve done that many times,” Sister Vontz said. “I think the very fact that they (artists and clients) knew I was a sister was a testimony to faith.”

Sister Vontz moved to Montana in 1991, where she works at St. Patrick Hospital, Missoula, at the information desk, intensive-care waiting area, or wherever needed.

Sister Vontz has had a lot of wonderful experiences and opportunities, but of course, she said the greatest blessings are those God placed in her heart. “He’s blessed me a wonderful vocation, wonderful gifts of love and caring. I’m truly grateful that he’s put these things in my heart and for the devotion to the trinity – and to the hope of everlasting life.”


Published in the Montana Catholic, Vol. 22, No. 2, February 17, 2006.