Wake Reflection for Sr. Charlotte Sonneville
d. August 22, 2022
By Sr. Susan Hutchens, Prioress
I was six years old when I was first introduced to Sister Angela Sonneville (later known as Sister Charlotte when she returned to her Baptismal name). She was in her 20’s at the time. She entered our first-grade lives with a box of crazy noise-makers and a huge smile on her face. No matter what we did the smile never left. She called it “rhythm band.” We knew it was a time to just make noise and have fun with music.
My school, St. Thomas More in Munster, IN was Sr. Charlotte’s first “mission” away from Nauvoo, after making vows. When I began, it was only 5 years old, with 6 classrooms for 8 grades, and about 175 students. Each year those grades increased in size. By the time I graduated 8 years later, there were many new classrooms, and close to 500 students. Today they would call that over-crowding. We just called it school. Well more than ½ of those students by then participated in some form of music: band, chorus, and/or private lessons. All because Sister Charlotte started us out with a bunch of finger cymbals, triangles and ratchet sticks!
Sister Charlotte planned her funeral quite well – except she didn’t choose any readings for this Wake – so I did. The first was a Magnificat she wrote. I have no idea when, or for what occasion she wrote it. Nor do I know if it was ever read aloud by anyone except herself. But it seemed proper tonight to read it here.
As her Magnificat said: Her soul was filled with the glory of God, which, for her, echoed in all of nature, from the breath of a bird’s call, to the
“dance of life” in music and movement, as she so eloquently put it. She listened with the ear of her heart, as all Benedictines are called to do, and knew the true longing of her heart – Christ.
Charlotte Theresa Sonneville was born on December 21, 1929, In Moline – less than 2 months into the Great Depression. Her parents, Charles Louis and Marguerite Cauwels Sonneville were of Belgian descent, her mother having been born there, and they were all very proud of that! Sister Charlotte wrote that they were in business for themselves from the time they married – and ran a grocery store, restaurant, apartments, furniture and drapery stores at different times. She said they worked day and night – no doubt because of raising a family during these difficult days.
Sister had 3 older brothers who loved her! Arthur, Joseph, and Charles. They were a close-knit family. Charlotte attended St. Mary School in Moline, from 1st-9th grades. She transferred to St. Mary’s Academy in Nauvoo, IL for 10th-12th grades and graduated in 1947. On November 1 of that year, she entered the Benedictine community with 3 other postulants, and they joined 3 others who had entered a few months earlier. Two days later she was assigned to teach music to the 5-8th grade students at St. Peter and Paul school in Nauvoo.
She made her first profession on the Feast of St. Benedict, July 11, 1949, and her final profession on July 11, 1952. She attended classes at a number of colleges over the years: St. Ambrose, Davenport, IA, Quincy College, Quincy, IL Rosary and DePaul Colleges in Chicago, St. Louis Institute of Music, St. Scholastica College, Duluth, MN and the University of IL from which she received her BS in Music Education with emphasis in voice. She went on for graduate study in music education and later guidance and counseling at Loras College, Dubuque, IA, but did not complete that program, because she was transferred to the Pastoral Institute at Loyola University in Chicago, to obtain an MA in Religious Education.
Sister began teaching grade school in 1949 when she was still 19 years old. I remember being told at one time that my pastor suggested she wear glasses with no glass in them, because the children would never notice, and it would make her look older! She wrote about that first assignment:
“I was thrilled, excited and scared. I was so new at being a “nun” much less a teacher”! She quickly became a full-time music teacher in Munster, IN and at grade and high schools in Peoria, and Moline, IL.
By 1965 she began full-time catechetical work at Ladd, IL. But she never abandoned her music background, and kept some students.
In 1969, along with 2 monks from St. Bede Abbey and our Sr. Mary Schmidt, they founded the Benedictine Religious Education Center, (BREC) for the areas and surrounding parishes including, Peru, LaSalle, and the rural areas of central IL. She did Bible Study, RCIA programs, and worked with choirs in a number of parishes. It was highly successful and had a wide reach of programs – particularly in training lay adults to teach faith formation.
During those years, she was elected as President of the Peoria Diocesan Sisters’ Conference. She also served as Vice-President of the Illinois Valley Clergy Conference, was a member of the Peoria Diocesan Liturgy Commission, a member of the Peoria Diocesan Board of Education, and founder of the Support Group for Divorced, Widows, and Separated of the IL Valley area. In 1987, while still in that area, she was named “Woman of the Year” by the IL Valley Business and Professional Women’s Club.
In 1991 she served as Pastoral Associate at St. Joseph Parish, Pekin, IL, where she also directed Liturgy and choir. In 1994 she moved to St. Ambrose parish here in Milan and continued her catechetical work. From 2005-2010 she was appointed Director of our Benet House Retreat Center and co-director of Liturgy for the Benedictine Sisters.
Sister Charlotte traveled much of the world – from the US east coast to west, plus visiting many European countries, including her mother’s birthplace, Rome and the Holy Land. She expressed much gratitude for those opportunities to travel. But her feet were always planted in the soil of her faith and her Benedictine community.
Sister Charlotte spent over 70 years in community smiling, singing, teaching, sharing Christ with others. I was part of her first career – the music part. Not that she ever left that part behind, mind you. But those early years of her ministry were devoted to music. Later she found what she told a friend was her “true calling” – becoming a catechist, where she could teach – more aptly perhaps, share her love of Christ with others. She led choirs along the way, but eventually gave that up. But almost until she died she was still leading people to Christ through Scripture study.
In recent years she experienced the natural effects of aging: she began to lose her balance, to lose her eye-sight, and to lose much of her beautiful voice. But she never stopped singing or, like Jesus in the Gospel just read, Sr. Charlotte never stopped planting many seeds as she had done throughout her life – seeds of beauty and song in music, of love and hope through the words of Christ, and her deep love of sharing Scripture with others.
She was one of those who heard the word, embraced it with a good heart, shared it with a generous spirit, and bore great fruit for Christ.
As her Magnificat stated – each day of her life she followed in the foot-steps of Christ who died to set her and all of us, free. She now enjoys that freedom to the fullest. No more losses for her – only the gains of life eternal. I have no doubt she is singing again with her voice at its very best as part of the heavenly choir.
We are grateful for the presence of some of her family members as well as her friends who are with us at this time.
I now invite you to share your stories and memories of Sister Charlotte. We only wish that so many others could be with us this evening. We thank all those who are here and those who are with us in spirit. Please come forward and use the microphone – our chapel does not work well for “voice alone” without a mic.