Skip to main content

Sister Miriam Russell, OSB papers

 Collection
Identifier: OSBCHI-D-RUSSMIRI

Scope and Contents

This collection includes 1 hanging file of biographical and personal data and 1 box of personal papers.

Sister Miriam Russell had a reputation as a dedicated correspondent. Her box of personal papers contains a small sample of letters to or from her between 1967 and 2001, as well as letters about her sent to the community during her retirement and after her death. Her family was well known in Southern Colorado and her mother’s memoirs of the Santa Fe Trail served as sources for historians and dramatists. The information about her family comes from previously published resources. During the construction of new buildings on the campus of Saint Scholastica Academy in Canon City, Colorado, Sr. Miriam visited the sites, chatted with workers, and kept journals of the construction. These buildings were demolished in 2019 by the new owners of the campus. Over the years, people found many reasons to celebrate the life of Sr. Miriam Russell, so there is a collection of accounts of her life that were written for these occasions and several articles and poems that she wrote for community publications.

Dates

  • Creation: circa 1910-2009

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

Sisters' papers are restricted for 50 years after the Sister's death, until March 27th, 2055. Photographs, previously published, and widely distributed materials are unrestricted.

Biographical / Historical

Sister Miriam Russell (1906-2005) was born and raised on her family ranch in Stonewall, Colorado. She attended Mount Saint Scholastica Academy in Canon City, Colorado, converted to Catholicism, and entered the Benedictine Sisters of Chicago. She was a beloved teacher of Spanish and ESL who served briefly in Chicago and Tucson and the rest of her years in Canon City. She was also an active participant in the Colorado Summer Schools of Religion. After the school in Colorado closed, Sr. Miriam retired to the Saint Joseph Court Infirmary in Chicago where she died peacefully on Easter Sunday 2005.

Extent

.26 Linear Feet (1 box and 1 hanging folder)

Language of Materials

English

Metadata Rights Declarations

  • License: This record is made available under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Creative Commons license.

Related Materials

My Golden Treasures, a Memory Book kept by Helen Louise Russell of M.S.S.A., C.C.C (1925) is in Record Group B, Schools, Series- Scrapbooks.

The memoirs of mother Marian (Marion) Sloan Russell are catalogued with books as LAN.1954, LAN.1954.2, and ALO.1933.

Title
A Guide to Sister Miriam Russell, OSB papers
Author
Clara Finkelstein; Virginia Jung
Date
2025-09-10
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin

Repository Details

Part of the Benedictine Sisters of Chicago Archives Repository

Contact:
Archives
Benedictine Sisters of Chicago
7430 N. Ridge Blvd.
Chicago Illinois 60645 United States
(773) 764-2413 ext. 203