S. Estelle Nordick (1898-1984) - College Faculty, Hospital Administrator
Sister Estella (Stella Julianna) was born on April 23, 1898, to Bernard and Clara (Tekippe) in Kent, Minnesota. When she was young she begged to go to school so they let her “sit in” the first year. She remembers playing “sister” when she was young with a towel on her head as a veil. By eighth grade, her father let her attend St. Benedict's Academy and was the first in the family to get her diploma. She didn’t feel she wanted the religious life, but later describes her being a Benedictine sister a benefit, helping others and spreading the Word. She thought she would be a Dominican sister, but every time she was to visit, something happened. What stimulated her to join the convent was the result of an ad in the Fargo Forum newspaper where an article stated that Congress may start enlisting women into the Army. Her father did not want her to go into the service, so instead, she joined the convent, After graduating from St. Benedict's Academy, she entered St. Benedict's Convent in 1918. She taught biology at Holy Angels High School for 22 years while also earning her B.A. from the College of St. Benedict in 1927. She earned a M.S. from Marquette University in biology and counseling in 1939 after 18 years of summer classes. Her thesis was titled, “Spermatogenesis in the Chareae with Special Reference to the Behavior of the Antherozoid.” After two years of teaching biology at the College of Saint Benedict, she became a student at St. Cloud Hospital School of Nursing (1945-46) and began her career in health care ministry.
In 1946, she left MN to help pioneer the Benedictine sisters' mission to Utah. She always wanted to live in the mountains since she was a little girl. She described that in Utah was the only time of her life when she was hungry. Sharing even silverware as they had only six sets for seven sisters. In Utah, the nuns were a bit of a novelty among the Mormons, but they had a purpose with the hospital. Educating the Mormons on the life of a Benedictine was something of a curiosity. The Mormons couldn’t understand why educated women would want to not have a salary and get married. They had to explain they wanted to serve God and did not care about the materialistic life, which Sister Estelle said was the primary goal of a Mormon. They were allotted $500 a month to feed 15 and pay two men. As the hospital progressed, behind by two years, she sewed drapes and scrubbed floors. The description of “pioneers” was accurate with the lack of resources they had as they established the hospital. Washing 1000 pieces of linens and sewing all of the wraps for the hospital was just another example of the work they accomplished. Resourcing for food was also a part of daily life, cherry-picking and canning became routine in Utah. They contracted trees they would pick from and can as many cherries as they could. At one point, S. Estelle planted walnut trees that she later went back to see after she retired.
Other moments in Utah that Sister Estelle noted was during the polio epidemic and not having presents for the 138 patients on Christmas Eve and a delivery which was a gift from Goodrich Tires of beautiful dolls for girls and other toys for boys. In 1948, she became the purchaser for the hospital and said she loved to shop. One recalls on supply day being delivered a man made of a scrub suit, gloves, painters had on a surgery cart. Someone had put on the supply slip - “a six-foot dark-haired man”. Sister Estelle has a sense of humor and said that things were too serious these days. The sisters did it all in the hospital whether they were trained or not trained or if the job needed to get done. Sister Estelle helped deliver over 2000 babies with no nursing training. She would take care of things regardless of what, even below her, mopping floors when no janitor was in sight.
She served as an instructor of basic sciences at the St. Benedict's Hospital School of Nursing, served in departmental work at the hospital, and became its administrator (1961-67). In 1965, after some resistance, she had her first leg amputated. She refused to sign off at first, and when she finally did, she whipped the pencil against the wall with disgust and declared she would be getting a good-looking leg and good-looking shoes. When she stepped down from administration at age 70, she recognized someone younger should be in the position. In an editorial by Father Lawerence Sweeney on her stepping down, “A sign of one's greatness is the recognition of one’s limitations”. She recalled that every day when possible, she went to the chapel for spiritual communion, and she then felt armed to and could do her having Christ with her. The changes after Vatican II was also an adjustment, the removal of the headdress and wearing secular clothes. What seemed to puzzle her more was the removal of superiors and what it meant to be obedient in the community when the decisions were really now their own.
After her golden jubilee in 1970, she remained at St. Benedict's in semi-retirement but returned to Ogden (1974-79) to write a history of St. Benedict's Hospital in Ogden, UT. The new housing for the sisters was too far of a walk to the hospital, so the Country Club in Ogden answered her prayers and made a significant contribution, giving her a golf cart for getting around. She took the driver's exam, just as though she owned a Cadillac to get around. She loved the feel of the wind on her face. She even got a garage door opener so she wouldn’t have to wait for someone to open the garage. She did more than record history but visited patients, caring for personal, emotional, and physical needs. I979, she had the second leg removed and retired at St. Scholastica Convent. She died there in 1984.
