When it came to her students' chasing down news for their high school newspaper, Sister Julia Anne Maus taught them to never bury the lead, to crop photos tightly and to push a deadline. She was, however, unwilling to explain how she became so adept at running around a slippery football field in a full habit, white coif tight around her head, lugging a camera over her shoulder.
At Aquinas High School in La Crosse, Wis., she was the nun who seemed to be everywhere. One moment she was encouraging her journalism students to ask that just-right question, the next offering quiet insights by quoting poetry.
On Wednesday, the life of the oldest living Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration was celebrated at a funeral mass in La Crosse. Maus was 106 when she died last Sunday.
At Aquinas, she could be found on Friday evenings in the fall, working the sidelines and hauling a giant Kodak with the flashbulbs popping off in the eyes of players.
For decades, before entering the community of nuns and long afterward, she implored high school students to succeed. Hers was a simple method -- teach by example and passion. From the Iron Range and the Twin Cities to the hill communities of southwestern Wisconsin, she left scores of students bent on journalism with a lasting sense that they could reach and dream.
Becoming a nun at 42
After they'd graduated, she continued to teach them by living a principled life focused on social justice.
Maus was born in Albany, Minn., one of 12 children. Two of her four sisters also became nuns. She entered the community at 42, after caring for her aging mother, Catherine, while working as a teacher in Eveleth, Minn.
