OMRF Stories - Fall 2009

At the Sisters of St. Joseph Motherhouse in La Grange, Illinois, most of the retired nuns have hung up their habits. As they’re winding down their lives of devotion, they’ve traded out their monochromatic vestments for something a bit more casual. But not Sister Adrian Schmidt. Sister Adrian holding a baseball

She still wears the black and white garments of her order. Of course, this being a suburb of Chicago, she does allow herself one indulgence: a red, white and blue Cubs patch that adorns the chest of her black vest.

Sister Adrian, 81, may seem an unlikely candidate to unlock the secrets of Alzheimer’s disease. But through her work with a groundbreaking research project, she and other Catholic clergy are helping scientists at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation and throughout the world crack the code of a devastating illness that now affects 26.6 million people worldwide.

As a Sister of St. Joseph, Sister Adrian has given more than a half-century of her life in service to the Lord. She spent 50 years working in the kitchens of nunneries around the country, then another decade as house administrator for the Sisters of St. Joseph. A broad smile lights her face when she speaks of the sisterhood, the dear friends with whom she’s shared every piece of her life. But when the conversation turns to one such friend, her eyes grow moist behind her thick glasses.

“She studied art in Europe, you know,” Sister Adrian says. “The things she could do with stone were simply amazing. You’ll see what I mean when we go into the chapel.” Indeed, when you enter, you’re greeted by a formidable chunk of alabaster, carved and worn and polished into the likeness of Mary, the mother, cradling the infant Jesus.

It’s the most ornate object in a room that is sparse by design. White walls give way to breaks and bursts of color from stained glass. Sister Adrian comes here often, treading across the burgundy carpet and past the lightly stained wooden pews to dip her fingers into the bowl of holy water.

She loves the silence, the beauty of this contemplative space. But here, her thoughts will sometimes take her to dark places.

There was no harder task than watching Alzheimer’s disease erase her friend. Hands that once shaped sculptures and planed wooden altars eventually lost the ability even to cut string. By the time Alzheimer’s ended her life, the person inside had long since vanished.

So when a man asked Sister Adrian if she’d help save others from the same fate, she didn’t think twice.

There’s one sticky detail, he said. We’re going to need your brain after you die.

“Some people think donating your brain to science is scary,” says Sister Adrian. “That’s not scary. Scary is watching your friend disappear before your eyes.”

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