At the end of this school year, Sisters of the Holy Cross
Anne Tardiff and Elizabeth Rossetti will retire after six
decades in Catholic education. But when the sisters leave
Bishop Ireton High School in Alexandria, it will also mark
the end of another era: the Holy Cross Sisters’ service in
Virginia Catholic schools, where they have taught since the
end of the Civil War.
“It’s a little bit poignant that Sister Anne and I are
leaving Alexandria, which by the way, is my hometown,” said
Sister Elizabeth, who teaches senior English.
As the last full-time teachers in the region, the two sisters
had been “kind of reluctant to let it go,” but “knew it was
time to retire,” Sister Elizabeth said. “We enjoyed our
60-plus years in the classroom – but you just know.”
The Sisters of the Holy Cross came to Alexandria after they
served as nurses at St. Aloysius Hospital in Washington
during the Civil War. After the war ended, the pastor of St.
Mary Church, Jesuit Father Peter Kroes, invited them to open
a parish school. The sisters went a step further and also
opened an all-girls school, St. Mary’s Academy.
See historic photos of St. Mary’s Academy
Sister Elizabeth, who was educated by the Holy Cross Sisters
from the third grade through high school, spent a year
working at city hall after her graduation from St. Mary’s
Academy in 1949. Her job was to issue building permits and
color in zoning maps, keeping them up-to-date.
“One customer came in and said, ‘Hey, my third-grade kid
could do that.’ … I knew I wasn’t going to spend the
rest of my life coloring zoning maps,” said Sister Elizabeth,
who later earned a master’s degree from Fordham University.
In 1950, she joined the Holy Cross sisters and began to teach
while taking classes one at a time to earn her bachelor’s
from Dunbarton College of the Holy Cross in Washington.
In 1952, Sister Anne, a Maine native, was inspired to enter
religious life by an aunt who was a missionary. She began her
teaching career at St. Mary School in 1955 and earned her
bachelor’s degree from Dunbarton College and her master’s
degree in English from Catholic University in Washington. She
taught and worked as a principal at Catholic schools in
Texas, New York, Maryland and Washington, D.C., before
settling at St. Mary’s Academy. When the academy closed in
1990, she and Sister Elizabeth were invited to teach at
Ireton. Sister Anne teaches academic enrichment, helping
students with Math, Spanish and English.
“I see them each day learning a little more and that’s very
satisfying,” Sister Anne said.
Sister Elizabeth added, “Sister Anne’s too modest to say
this, so I’ll say it. A number of students say that if it
were not for her encouragement, they would not have graduated
from Bishop Ireton.”
Sister Anne also has helped obtain financial assistance from
her order for Ireton students who need help to attend the
school.
Ireton dedicated Sister Elizabeth’s longtime classroom to her
last year.
Sister Anne plans to learn how to play the guitar once she
and Sister Elizabeth retire to the order’s motherhouse in
Notre Dame, Ind. “Anne and I already have set our sights on
the college library there,” said Sister Elizabeth.
Though their teaching career stretched six decades, the
sisters take a longer view of their work.
“I think as Christian teachers we can say: I teach, I touch
eternity,” Sister Elizabeth said. “You are molding minds that
will live forever in eternity.”
