The DNA In A Strand Of Hair Ties Smithtown Artist To Quest For Sainthood

SMITHTOWN, NY — Few U.S. citizens can claim they’re related to someone who is a saint or nominated for canonization, but Donna Gabusi can. Of the 10,000 saints recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, only three were born in the United States.

The 54-year-old Smithtown artist’s curiosity was piqued about 10 years ago when she and her mother were watching news coverage of the beatification ceremony — the first ever in the United States — for Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich.

Gabusi’s mother remarked that a photo of the U.S.-born nun looked familiar and, sure enough, they found it on a prayer card.

Written on it, in her grandmother’s handwriting, was the word “cousin.”

With that, Gabusi set off on a chase of her family history that she hopes will end with her grandmother’s first cousin’s canonization.

A second miracle must be verified for that to happen. Miriam Teresa’s first involved the restoration of Michael Mencer’s sight. A youngster of about 7, had developed juvenile macular degeneration and was declared legally blind. His Catholic school teacher gave him a prayer card and relic of Sister Miriam Teresa in 1963, and he was inexplicably cured, leading to her beatification, according to the Catholic News Agency.

‘The Past Is Who You Are’

“Every time I tell that story, their eyes glaze over. They don’t believe me or think I’m a religious fanatic,” Gabusi told Patch.

“I’m not at all,” said Gabusi, who was baptized and confirmed by the church but describes herself as a lapsed Catholic.

“I just want to tell people that she was a real person, like you and me,” she said. “Saints aren’t some faraway statue in some church someplace nobody’s heard of from a thousand years ago. She was local, it was recent.”

For Gabusi, the journey hasn’t been to recapture lost religiosity, but about discovering who she herself is.

“People say, ‘It’s the past, who cares?’ The past is who you are. That’s how you became who you are,” she said.

Research took Gabusi to Saint Elizabeth University in Morristown, New Jersey, where her now venerated cousin studied before entering the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth’s novitiate 100 years ago. It led to a commission for the drawing of the young nun, who died in 1927 — unaware of the profound and lasting effect she would have on others.

“I decided to draw her face,” Gabusi said of the drawing that remains on permanent display. “It shows two faces, the college student and the nun. They wanted something different.”

A 4th U.S.-Born Saint?

From what Gabusi has been able to piece together, Miriam Teresa is the youngest of seven children born to Alexander Demjanovich and Johanna Suchy, who emigrated from Ruthenia (now eastern Slovakia) and settled on New York’s Lower East Side. They eventually moved to Bayonne, New Jersey, where Miriam Teresa was born on March 26, 1901.

In high school, she felt called to become part of the cloistered life of a Carmelite nun, one who dedicates her life to contemplative prayer and sacrifice. But her mother was ill, and Miriam Teresa stayed home to care for her.

After her mother’s death and with the encouragement of her family, Miriam Teresa entered the College of Saint Elizabeth at Convent Station, New Jersey. In 1923, she graduated with the highest honors with a degree in literature.

She took a teaching position at the Academy of Saint Aloysius in Jersey City, where her humility and genuine piety were widely recognized, according to historical accounts. She still yearned for a religious life, and decided to enter the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth convent in February 1925.

Her father died after catching a cold, again delaying Miriam Teresa’s entrance to the convent. She was admitted to the novitiate of the religious congregation and received the religious habit on May 17, 1925.

In 1926, she became very ill and was diagnosed with physical and nervous exhaustion, with myocarditis and acute appendicitis. She was so weak that doctors feared she wouldn’t survive the operation and put it off.

On May 6, 1927, they operated. But it was too late. Miriam Teresa died two days later.

‘Talk To Your Relatives’

Although the discovery that her grandmother Irene’s cousin was beatified didn’t send Gabusi on her own religious quest, she is struck by the parallels in their lives. They are strands that bind her with family members she never knew, but whose DNA she shares, symbolized by the single strand of Blessed Miriam Teresa’s hair on a laminated prayer card she keeps by her bedside.

“She delayed her religious life because of her parents,” Gabusi said.

Similarly, Gabusi’s main “job” now is caring for her 86-year-old mother, who was widowed when Gabusi was 9. She has never driven, and Gabusi organizes her life around her mother’s appointments.

“It’s the daughter who takes care of the parents,” she said, matter-of-factly.

There are other similarities in their lives. Miriam Teresa wrote poetry and painted with watercolors. Gabusi does both, and she would some day like to write a book about her.

“I really wish I could talk to Teresa,” Gabusi said. “As a kid, you don’t pay attention to your family history. I wish I was more interested back then Now everybody’s dead.”

She does the next-best thing. Every day, she talks to the prayer card, the one containing the strand of Miriam Teresa’s hair occupying a special place on her bedside table

There are no rosaries, no making of the sign of the cross.

“I tell her, ‘Please give me a good day, a healthy day, a safe trip.’”

If there’s something to be learned from her story, it’s this, Gabusi said:

“Talk to your grandmother, talk to your grandparents, talk to your relatives. They would be happy to tell their stories. Talk to your family because one day, they’re not going to be here. Record it. Once they’re gone, that’s it.”

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Patch People is a recurring feature telling the stories of readers, including their interests, passions, challenges, triumphs and seminal moments that resulted in profound change, with a goal of making us all feel a bit more connected. Or, you may want to talk about something entirely different, and that’s OK, too. Readers can submit their stories through this form or by email to beth.dalbey@patch.com.