David Gonzalez/The New York Times Sister Nora McArtSeptembers have been cruel to the people of Crotona ever since St. Martin of Tours grammar school closed in 2011. Last year, it brought the death of the Rev. John C. Flynn, the longtime pastor and “people’s priest,†who fought to save the doomed Bronx school. This year it brings the passing of Sister Nora McArt, the silver-haired nun who spent four decades teaching the children of that parish.
She died on Friday. She was 68 years old - 50 of them devoted to her vocation - and had been ill for some time.
The redbrick school was shuttered by the Archdiocese of New York for lack of money. Sister Nora staved off a previous attempt to close the school in 2006, though her victory came with concessions to her downtown bosses, who appointed her principal but took control of the finances.
For the next five years, she and Father Flynn waged a fierce battle to keep the school open. Their efforts failed and the parish school was closed, only to be rented out a few months later to a public school. She planned to go work with an immigrant services group, but fell ill soon after the school closed.
Sister Nora moved to the Bronx’s Crotona neighborhood in 1969, the same year my family fled the fires that had hit our building on East 181st Street. I got to know her in the 1990s, as I watched her join forces with Father Flynn, the school custodian Astin Jacobo and then-principal Sister Cecilia McCarthy to help each other and their neighbors fight for respect, safety and dignity in a neighborhood laid low by poverty and violence and almost written off by city officials.
Sister Nora had a voice and laugh that betrayed her blue-collar roots in Yorktown, where she grew up as the daughter of Irish immigrants. She went to Cathedral High School and joined the Dominican order soon after graduation - one of 56 women who entered the Sparkill motherhouse. The Mother General called them her “Joyful Mysteries.â€
Almost all of that class have since left the order or died. Few are following in their footsteps.
But Sister Nora stayed true to her vows and her students, even as she became the sole resident of the run-down convent attached to the school. In recent days, former students have taken to social media to share their memories: they called her tough, inspiring, caring and awesome. They credited her with changing lives, scaring them straight and making them feel loved. That she was a disciplinarian who could break up a fight single-handedly was never in dispute. Less known was her sense of humor, though she could crack you up with a choice quip.
She could be feisty, but in the weeks before the school was closed she was just furious. She felt betrayed and hurt, especially by the archdiocesan hierarchy whose officials stayed away as she went about the dismal rituals of closing down the building. There were no strains of “To Sir, With Love†in those days, just the sound of ancient books tossed into huge garbage piles and filing cabinets dragged downstairs with a bang - and the occasional sarcastic crack about those who saw the school’s closing as inevitable, even as they spent money refurbishing cathedrals or residences for a retired cardinal.
But she always made sure to shield her children.
On the school’s final day - June 22, 2011 - Sister Nora sat among her young charges at a prayer service inside the cavernous church. At one point, she spotted a third grader crying. Sister Nora got up, crossed the aisle - genuflected before the altar - and settled in next to the girl. She put her arm around the child.
Together, they knelt and prayed.
