Sister Claudette Hudalla, SSND

Less than two months after the death of her sister, LaVerne, OSB, our beloved Sister Claudette Hudalla, SSND, 93, died peacefully at 8:20 p.m. on Thursday, October 3, 2019, in Notre Dame Health Care, Good Counsel Hill, Mankato, Minnesota. She had been placed on Hospice one day earlier due to her declining condition.

The funeral liturgy, with Father Eugene Stenzel as presider, will be held Tuesday, October 8, at 10:30 a.m. in Our Lady of Good Counsel Chapel. At 9:00 a.m., a prayer service of remembrance will precede the funeral liturgy. Burial of her cremains will follow in the Good Counsel Cemetery. We extend our sympathy to Sister Claudette’s sister, Marlene Yarusso, her sister-in-law, Mary, her nieces and nephews and their families, her friends, colleagues and former students, and her sisters in community, the School Sisters of Notre Dame and SSND Associates. She was preceded in death by her parents, Leo and Dorothy (Cavegn) Hudalla, her sisters Sister LaVerne, OSB, and Dorothy Barrett, and her brothers Leo, Robert and Gene.

The oldest of seven children, Sister Claudette was born on March 24, 1926, in St. Paul to Leo and Dorothy (Cavegn) Hudalla. Three weeks later, she was baptized Dolores Margaret at St. Casimir Church. In the fall of 1931 she started first grade at St. Casimir School and completed grades one through three there. As a fourth grader, she transferred to Sacred Heart School, where she was taught by the School Sisters of Notre Dame. She wrote, “Our life was centered around our parish, Sacred Heart, where the SSND teachers and the OFM Capuchins did their best to mold us. Car doors flung open on the old Pontiac each Sunday as Dad headed for the ushers’ table, two boys to the sacristy, two girls to the choir, and the young siblings joined Mom in the pew. . . . The older girls huddled each Friday in the convent music room for choir practice. . . . Needless to say, we were all influenced by the SSND teachers who dominated our daily lives. There was an esprit de corps among them which spoke of genuine happiness.” After eighth grade graduation in 1939, financial circumstances made it necessary for Dolores to attend Johnson High School in St. Paul for two years. As a junior and senior, she attended St. Agnes High School, earning money for tuition and streetcar fares through a variety of jobs including a sales clerk, typing for a Miller Hospital social worker, waitress work at hotel banquets and babysitting. After graduating from high school in 1943, she worked as a bond statistician’s secretary at Paine Webber. Her vocation story continued, “Every Friday night found me at choir practice, sharing my ‘secrets’ and trying to make a final life choice. Prefecting the Sodality, dating often, working and liking it filled my days. But always in the back of my mind was a dream I had in the 8th grade to become an SSND. For four years I fought off this vocation. I was normal, I loved life, but I wanted some fulfillment.” At the suggestion of one of her grade school teachers, she visited Good Counsel during Reception and Profession days in the summer of 1946, and knew this was the place for her. She became an SSND candidate that fall and later wrote, “Never from that moment have I doubted my vocation.” As a second-year candidate, she taught fifth grade at SS. Peter & Paul, Mankato. Dolores was received into the novitiate in 1948 and given the name Sister Claudette. Following first profession of vows in 1949, she began her educational ministry as an intermediate and junior high teacher, first at St. Andrew, St. Paul (1949-50), then at SS. Cyril & Methodius, Minneapolis (1950-52), Immaculate Conception, Gilbertville, Iowa (1952-56), and finally at St. Peter, Hokah (1956-57). In 1957, her ministry as a high school teacher began with an appointment to Good Counsel Academy in Mankato where she taught English, business courses and physical education in addition to coaching speech and debate teams and assisting with drama productions. In 1962, she moved to Trinity High School in Dickinson, North Dakota, in just its second year of existence. A biographical sketch of Sister Claudette published when she was inducted into the North Dakota Speech and Theater Association Hall of Fame described her as follows: “Sister Claudette’s years at Trinity were especially memorable because she was a teacher there when the school first opened. She instituted Trinity’s very successful speech and debate program as well as the high school’s participation in student congress. The forensics season lasted from September to April with events scheduled almost every weekend. Despite this heavy schedule she also found time to direct the school’s drama program, producing plays from such American classics as The Skin of Our Teeth to large-scale musicals such as Around the World in Eighty Days.” She continued her English, forensics and drama work at Loyola High School, Mankato, from 1970 through 1976 and again from 1978 through 1981. During her time at Loyola, she was instrumental in initiating the “Faculty Follies,” part of a school-wide fundraiser. She also taught high school classes at St. Mary, New England, North Dakota (1976-78 and 1983-84); Cretin, St. Paul (1981-82); Totino-Grace, Fridley (1985-87); and Holy Trinity, Winsted (1996-98). During her years in formal education, she earned a BA in secretarial science from Mount Mary in 1958, and an MA in speech and drama from Marquette University in 1968. She also earned postgraduate credits from several colleges and universities. Sister Claudette described her next field of ministry: “[In 1987] my innovative and creative teaching agenda underwent yet another metamorphosis as I moved from high school English, drama, public speaking and business courses to English as a Second Language in the Society of the Divine Word (SVD) College for International Seminarians in Epworth, Iowa. Here growth in a multicultural perspective is fostered through monthly International Nights, when men from many countries share their cherished cultures with faculty, staff and guests.” She continued her own education as well, taking classes and workshops to better assist speakers whose first language is not English. After six years in Epworth, Sister Claudette answered another educational call, a call to teach English to high school students at Patrona Hungariae Gimnázium in Budapest, Hungary. She taught sophomores through seniors twice a week and substituted on Saturday for a young teacher who was taking college courses. (In Hungary, classes were taught six days a week.) She read or helped find readers for the only English-speaking Mass in Budapest and taught English Mass prayers to her students. She wrote, “For the three other teachers of English, I am the ‘native speaker’ and the ‘source of all wisdom.’ The wisdom comes from books from America sent over by Sister Francis Marie Illa and the former students at both Dickinson and New England.” She thoroughly enjoyed her two years in Hungary and took full advantage of the cultural and travel opportunities offered there. Sister Claudette returned from Hungary in 1995 and taught one year in the Good Counsel Learning Center, followed by two years at Holy Trinity in Winsted. In 1998 she continued her ESL ministry as a fully certified ESL teacher. She worked in the Roseville Community Center, the Jewish Community Center in Roseville, and at Jewish Family Services in St. Paul. Seeing the need to prepare students for employment as quickly as possible, she offered a class called Functional Work English. She described the class, “We dramatize work experiences such as introductions, visiting the supply room and requesting materials, calling in sick, and coming in late.” Students practiced filling out job applications and reading bus schedules. Again, Sister Claudette appreciated being in a multicultural environment. She volunteered at the East Side Learning Center in St Paul from 2006 until she came to Good Counsel in 2013. Sister Claudette participated enthusiastically in Health Care activities and meetings, and was known as a one-person Trivial Pursuit team. Her love of music and laughter stayed with her throughout her life. Sister Claudette valued her call to religious life and celebrated her 70th Jubilee of religious profession this year. Now she no longer needs to “walk by faith,” but is able to “walk by sight” in the presence of God, whom she served so faithfully here on earth.