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Sister Mary Jean Dorcy, O.P.
I WAS BORN IN ANACORTES, WASHINGTON,
ON March 10, 1914, the youngest of nine children of William and
Emma (Knapp) Dorcy, both natives of Michigan who had come West
a few years before I was born. My father was Irish, my mother
a combination of several nationalities of which Dutch, German,
Scottish and Spanish had contributed the most. In assessing the
sources of my writing and illustrating work, I think it is probably
accurate to say that the imagination came from my father and
his wonderful heritage of Irish fantasy, and the technical skill
from my mother, who had incredibly skillful hands.
My education up through first
year in college was in public schools; I graduated from Anacortes
High School in 1931. At the end of my freshman year at the University
of Washington, I entered the Dominican novitiate at Everett (the
motherhouse has since been moved to Edmonds), Washington, where
I made profession in January 1934. After profession I returned
to college at the Jesuits' Gonzaga University in Spokane; here
I received my Bachelor's degree in 1941. Three years later I
received a Master of Fine Arts degree at California College of
Arts and Crafts in Oakland.
It would sound much nicer if
I could truthfully say that my writing career began with a revelation
from Heaven that I was marked for such an apostolate; or that
a great talent in writing inclined my superiors to demand that
I take up, however reluctantly, that which is mightier than the
sword. However, it would be much nearer the truth to say that
I began writing at the age of six, because I had the measles
and my sister didn't. Veracity also forces me to add that whatever
course my life might have taken, whatever my superiors or associates
might have thought, I would probably, somehow, have kept on writing;
not through any sense of being a chosen one to do a certain work
(though I certainly believe that God plans the means, as well
as the end, of our works) but because once you start writing
you cannot very well get off the roller-coaster.
The opening gun, then, was
an unprinted item about a family of canaries running to eight
pages of my mother's best writing paper and illustrated with
my sister's new water colors (which she had gone to school and
left unguarded). My mother, according to this book was "a
pertty bird," a statement that never, to the day of his
death, failed to get an amused chuckle out of my father. I was
"a plane bird." Psychiatrists need lose no time over
this admission of inferiority; I was the youngest of a big family
of gifted children, I admired them unto worship, and to them
first of all I attribute my dogged pursuit of the muses. They
were patient with my early efforts, and they never laughed at
the wrong time. I mention this forgotten manuscript because it
was in so many ways typical of what my writing career would always
be. First of all, it came about in a haphazard way that has characterized
so many of the unplanned joys of my life. Secondly, it established
a pattern that I was to follow until it became physically impossible
to do so, that I would do both text and illustrations for my
books, simultaneously and without any conscious thought about
it. Thirdly, it was the first of countless times that family,
friends, and community have backed me loyally and given me the
help and the materials to continue. This, I think, is the rock
on which many beginners founder. A writer cannot work in a vacuum,
he must have the inspiration of those around him, and their understanding
love.
The only truly brilliant thing
I have ever done was to enter the Dominican Order, that vast
storehouse of sanctity, learning and charity which allows even
a very small depositer to take out great fortunes of spiritual
and intellectual assistance.
Early in my postulate, the
Mother Superior-against my better judgment, it may be said!-started
me out writing for publication. During my novitiate years, my
Novice-Mistress made up her mind that there was no reason at
all why I should not cut out silhouettes. So, backed by the moral
support of my lawful superiors and surrounded by the keen and
realistic views of my companions, I went with trepidation into
the business of writing for someone besides myself. In the years
since then, I have come to recognize just how desperate a business
it is, and how tremendously important the press can be; but ignorance
was my only equipment at the beginning, along with a dazed determination
to be obedient.
In the past ten years my research
has settled into a pattern which allows a maximum of help from
a discouraging set of circumstances. I have access to an excellent
library, well-stocked with Dominican records, and have several
times gone to Eastern libraries where Lady material or special
Dominican material can be found. Since 98% of these records are
in some other language, there is the question of accurate translation,
which has been generously handled by the Dominican Fathers with
whom I work on any doctrinal or hagiographical matter. Always
when I need help, it comes along from somewhere, and people have
been unfailingly kind. In ordinary circumstances, I think, people
are much quicker to criticize than to praise; perhaps Our Lady-
who is my general manager- understands that I am not the rugged
sort who can get along entirely on my own, sufficient unto myself
and unconcerned what the rest of the world thinks. It makes me
very happy to receive letters from Mexico and Iceland and India
from people who have read my books, and to know that my silhouettes
are hanging on the walls of a convent near the South Pole and
in a rectory in Denmark and in Bankok and Ireland. Last year
I met a young Dominican student from Hong-Kong who says he learned
to read English from one of my books, and there is a young couple
in the midwest who each year make up the family Christmas card
with one of my silhouettes as background and their lovely children
in front. A mission chapel in Louisiana has two of my pictures
on the walls, beautifully enlarged and painted by the parishioners;
and every Christmas there are the wonderful letters from people
all over the world, more than outweighing the inevitable scars
and struggles of a tough profession.
There still remains the identifying
question as to whether I am a silhouettist who also writes books,
or an author who also illustrates. It will be simplest if I just
say that I do not know, and have no strong feeling either way.
My silhouettes have been used
not only in my own books but also as magazine covers and illustrations,
and by the N.C.W.C. News Syndicate as features in all the English-speaking
and Spanish-American countries for several years.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Sister both
wrote and illustrated A Shady Hobby, by Jean Frances
Bennett, pseud. (Bruce, 1944), a hobby book of silhouette cutting;
Mary My Mother (Sheed, 1945), a Mary book for small children;
Our Lady's Feasts (Id., 1946), a Mary book for teenagers;
A Crown for Joanna. (Id., 1946), a life of Blessed Joanna
of Portugal for teenagers; three volumes of Dominican Saints
for Children: Hunters of Souls, Truth Was Their Star, and
Army in Battle Array (Bruce, 1946-47); Our Lady of
Springtime (St. Anthony Guild, 1953), lyrics; Shepherd's
Tartan (Sheed, 1953), essays on convent life; Fount of
Our Joy (Newman, 1955), Lady legends for dramatization;
Master Albert (Sheed, 1955), life of St. Albert the Great
for children; The Carrying of the Cross (St. Anthony Guild,
1959), meditations for women; she also wrote Shrines of Our
Lady (Sheed, 1956), Mary (id., 1958), St. Dominic
(Herder's Cross & Crown series, 1959); and she illustrated
a number of books written by other authors.
Originally
published in The Book of Catholic Authors, Walter Romig,
Sixth Series, 1960.
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