Sr. Bernardita Abeyta, OP

Sr. Bernardita Abeyta, truly devoted to her New Mexican heritage, to her family life there, and to her ministry in New Mexico, describes excitedly, in Spanish and English, a colorful, happy, and very religious childhood in her native place, Barranco. Stories around some of its farm fields owned by the family, its neighbors formed in close-knit relationships of unity, in good times and in sadder ones, all the happenings in the family life, all spill out easily as Sr. Bernardita proclaims her heritage with warmth and joy.

Her tales of her public school education, of her very early desire to be a Sister, of the arrival of the Dominican Sisters in 1947, teaching in the public schools of Abiquiu, and of the building later of a Catholic school in Santa Fe provide a running history leading up to her own entrance to St. Mary of the Springs to become a Dominican. Her subsequent love of her Dominican life with all its enriching opportunities and her descriptions of her ministries in many places of the congregation shine out as she speaks of Somerset and Zanesville, Ohio; of work at Mohun Hall Health Care; of New Haven, Connecticut; of Santa Fe, New Mexico; Puerto Rico; of return again to New Mexico, and recently, of the Columbus Motherhouse.

Telling about her services in many ministries, she animatedly runs the gamut from cooking, laundering, helping in census taking, to earning her BA degree at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, CT, in elementary education, to teaching in New Mexico public schools, to 24 years in Puerto Rico, doing the primary grades in all subjects in Spanish, a custom there, to her last return service in some New Mexico parishes as Director of Religious Education, all recently ending in her retirement as volunteer in the Columbus Motherhouse.

Refreshing in its sincere and colorful gratitude, her appreciation for all her enriching times in the community glows with humor, happiness, and practicality. In her telling, she is living again all the services she was able to give, her gratitude for her education, her knowledge and learning in so many diverse fields, her family visit opportunities, and so much more. She will ever be thankful for God's bounty in her Dominican life.