Daughter of Charity celebrates 50 years

Intermountain Catholic

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Sister Stella Marie Zahner, Daughter of Charity, was honored April 28 during the 5:30 p.m. vigil Mass at St. Olaf Church in Bountiful. Surrounded by other Daughters of Charity, friends, family, and coworkers from her many years of service around the Diocese of Salt Lake City, Sr. Stella expresses gratitude for the appreciation she received.IC photo by Christopher Gray

BOUNTIFUL — Sister Stella Marie Zahner prefers to invest in livestock. A friend keeps track of the Daughter of Charity’s cow at a farm in Davis County. But Sr. Stella’s real love has always been education.

Sr. Stella joined the Daughters of Charity June 23, 1956. Fresh out of high school, she joined the community in St. Louis, Mo., and after studying at Marillac College, she was sent to Price.

"For 10 fun years I worked in Price at Notre Dame Elementary and High School. There were 12 of us Daughters of Charity," said Sr. Stella in a May 15 interview with the Intermountain Catholic. "I taught in the grade school, though we jointly helped the faculty of the high school. I lived there with some of the most talented sisters in the community.

"We could enjoy the life of the high school and cheer them on in their sports, their debate competitions, their drama competition. It was a wonderful experience for me," said Sr. Stella.

Sr. Stella met the Daughters of Charity in seventh grade in Perryville, Mo. At the time, the sisters were forbidden to drive.

"They did a lot of work with the poor, and I used to drive them to the nursing homes," said Sr. Stella. "We didn’t get to drive until after Vatican II.

"When you consider what you want to do with your life, hopefully you come back to your original desires. There were 24 sisters teaching in Perryville. In them I saw a lot of joy, a love for teaching, and a love for the poor, and I knew I had found what I wanted to do."

After her work in Price, Sr. Stella worked at a parish in Phoenix, Ariz. In 1976, Sr. Stella returned to Utah, where she served as a teacher and later as the principal of St. Olaf Elementary School in Bountiful.

"Principal is a tough job but you get to do things that as a teacher you wished the principal would have done. There are many opportunities given to the principal to do great work for the school. We started the auction when I was there, which today brings in a lot of money for the school. While principal, I also learned a lot about interpersonal relationships, especially with teachers. Most importantly, I learned to be a good listener," she said.

Sr. Stella is currently the coordinator of the Special Needs Program of the Catholic schools of the Diocese of Salt Lake City. "In the last 12 years, I have learned about a whole different side of the way people live and I have learned that the common myths about poverty are not true. It’s not true that if they want a job they can find one, and it’s also untrue that people can do better simply because they want to. When the car breaks down, there might not be any money to fix it. When the family has no health insurance, what can they do when the child needs to go to the dentist?

"Our community is about this; the poorest of the poor. With the Special Needs students, I work with the working poor. I have come to a real sense of how the working poor have to struggle. Also, I learned humility from them," Sr. Stella said.

Sr. Stella was honored for her half century of service April 28 during Mass at St. Olaf Church in Bountiful. In his homily, Msgr. Rudolph Daz said, "The vitality of the church needs all of us in our diverse roles. It needs men and women ready to experience misunderstanding, hardship, and rejection. But at the same time there is the unqualified joy of complete abandonment through Christ in his presence, availability, service, and compassion to the people.

Diocesan Vicar General Msgr. J. Terrence Fitzgerald congratulated Sr. Stella for her years of work. "For decades, the Catholic Schools in Utah have benefited from your spirit of service – from your beginnings in Price to your work today providing assistance to our students."