(1937-2020)

A childhood spent on Chicago’s North Side, with a large and loving family and under the tutelage of the Adrian Dominican Sisters at Queen of Angels School, gave Sister Sally Ann Fergus the perfect early grounding in life.

Sarah Ann, as she was baptized although she was always known as Sally, was born on September 21, 1937, to Rosaleen (Stratton) and William Fergus, a Chicago tavern owner. She was the fifth of seven children, with three brothers (William, Patrick and Thomas) and three sisters (Rosemary, Eileen, and Maureen). “We often speak of our family as the first five and the second two,” she wrote in her autobiography, because there was a five-year gap between her arrival and that of Maureen, and then another two years before Patrick came into the family.

“It made a big difference in our lives,” she wrote, because the two younger children “got to do so much more than we did – like travel to Ireland with my parents.”

Sally Ann and her siblings enjoyed a wonderful childhood with plenty of playmates in the neighborhood and activities including roller-skating around the block and trips to the library, the beach, the local park and, as they got older, Riverview Park to enjoy the rides. During the World War II years, her mother not only tended a garden plot in the backyard but also had a Victory Garden in “the prairie” (the Chicago term for an empty lot).

Read more about Sister Sally Ann (pdf)

Memorial gifts may be made to Adrian Dominican Sisters, 1257 East Siena Heights Drive, Adrian, Michigan, 49221. 

 

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