(This article originally appeared in the Winter 2025 edition of Ursulines Alive magazine.)

Sister Marilyn Mueth stands in front of the Smart board in her classroom just a few feet from two third-grade girls who need help with their upcoming math test.

“Can I take 8 from nothing?” Sister Marilyn asks.

“Nooooo” is one girl’s reply.

“I’m sending you home this pretest so you can go over it with your dad,” Sister Marilyn tells her. “I know your dad does your work with you. It has all the things I went over with you.”

Sister Marilyn is the resource teacher for all students at St. James Catholic School in Millstadt, Ill., a village of 4,000 people not far from St. Louis. All day long she works with students in small groups or one-on-one who need additional help to keep up with their classwork.

For these third graders, their classroom teacher brought Sister Marilyn the upcoming math test with concern that the girls were likely to fail without additional help. Sister Marilyn took the test home and developed her own questions to go over with these students. After 30 minutes, she moved on to her next student, a sixth grader.

“I’m not sure what we’re going to be working on,” Sister Marilyn says. “It could be math, it could be vocabulary, or it could be help writing a paper.” The student concedes she is having a bit of trouble with complete sentences. After working on those, the girl sits down at a computer while Sister Marilyn helps her find information for a paper the girl is writing on the Holocaust.

In what was once a common scene, Sister Marilyn is an anomaly these days – an Ursuline Sister of Mount Saint Joseph serving as an elementary school teacher. She and Sister Mary Celine Weidenbenner – who serves at Mary Carrico Memorial Catholic School in Knottsville, Ky. – are the only two Sisters serving in classrooms. Sister Carol Shively continues to serve as superintendent of the Diocese of Shreveport, La., Catholic Schools.

After teaching upper elementary grades for seven years as a lay person, Sister Marilyn joined the Ursuline Sisters of Belleville, Ill., in 1980 at age 31. She spent a few years in other ministries – retreat service, parish ministry, and caring for her mother in her final years – but for 40 of her 45 years as an Ursuline, she’s been a teacher.

“I enjoy being with kids,” she said. “I told my Belleville community, ‘I always need kids in my life.’ Kids give me a sense of vitality.”

Now at age 76, she is showing no signs of slowing down.

“I’m not worn out yet,” she says with a smile. “I was told, ‘You don’t seem like you’re 76.’ I think that is meant as a compliment.”

The Ursulines of Belleville merged with Mount Saint Joseph 20 years ago. Sister Marilyn and Sister Mary Ellen Backes – who serves in Springfield, Ill. – are the only remaining Belleville sisters.

“I find it important to keep serving here,” Sister Marilyn said. “My home parish is 15 minutes from here. I’ve always worked in this diocese. It’s been home.”

On this typical school day in September, Sister Marilyn is indefatigable. She arrives at 6 a.m., to prepare for her day, and usually stays until 3:30 or 4 p.m. She moves constantly, never sitting down, working through the times the other teachers have lunch.

Kristin Laws is in her second year as principal at St. James and refers to Sister Marilyn as “a valuable asset.”

“The kids know that she cares,” Laws said. “Sometimes she is the strong hand that they need. She plays music, the kids love and appreciate that. She offers her time before school and after school. The kids know they can rely on her.”

Laws says having a woman religious in the school is “amazing.”

“I’m Catholic, but I learn something every day about my faith,” she said. “She and I both get here early, so we have time to talk in the morning. She talks about her care and concern for her students. You have to love her.”

“I’m not sure the parents know what our school would be like without Sister Marilyn,” Laws said. “It’s a chess game all day long to fit every kid into her schedule.”

Sister Marilyn credits her flexibility to preparation. On this particular day, after her third graders and a sixth grader, she works with a seventh grader on his vocabulary, then two second graders on vocabulary, some third graders on vocabulary and reading, followed by seventh graders working on math. She also teaches K-4 music, and on this day, leads the third and fourth graders on some hymns and secular songs while playing the guitar and the keyboard.

“How about ‘Froggy Went A-Courtin?’” she asks her students to an enthusiastic response. This is one of the songs the children are practicing for a visit to an assisted living facility in the fall, where Sister Marilyn will play her third instrument, the accordion.

She taught second grade at St. James from 1991 to 2012, before moving to Holy Trinity Catholic School in Fairview Heights for two years while caring for her mother. After her mother’s death in 2016, she returned to St. James as a resource teacher.

“We used to joke that when she taught second grade the kids could go right onto fourth grade,” said Laura Diak, who is in her second stint at St. James, now teaching middle school math and 8^th grade home room. “I haven’t known St. James without Sister Marilyn.”

These days, Sister Marilyn works one on one with some of Diak’s students and also joins her classroom to assist students who need an accommodation because they learn differently.

“She’s very modest. She doesn’t fully understand the help she gives us,” Diak said. “I don’t know how we would ever replace her.”

Having a Sister teaching in the school is an added bonus for the students, Diak said.

“When she taught religion, it wasn’t just what was in the book,” she said. “It’s nice that no matter what she’s teaching, there is always a religious element that she brings to the forefront. It keeps that focus where it should be. The parents appreciate that.”

Darla Cobb has been a teacher for 37 years, with the last seven of those at St. James teaching middle school English language arts.

“Sister Marilyn has such diversity, she can step into any situation – from a kindergartener studying phonics, to an eighth grader in algebra,” Cobb said. “She doesn’t understand the people who do the bare minimum. She goes to great depths. She is working so hard, giving up all of her time to help the students.”

Sister Marilyn said she is much more structured now than when she was a new teacher.

“I always have routine in my classroom,” she said. “Kids love routine, they know what’s going to happen day to day. That gives them comfort.”

She taught some of the parents of today’s students, and some of the current staff at St. James, including Austin Gerteisen, who is in his seventh year working as an aide.

“She taught me in public school religion in the second grade. She made it fun, we sang a lot,” he said. “She made us feel connected to God.”

“I taught first-grade religion for two or three years,” Gerteisen said. “When the students asked me questions, I could go to her for a way better answer.”

Kylie Chitwood is teaching third grade this year. Sister Marilyn taught her in the second grade at St. James.

“I really learned a lot in second grade,” Chitwood said. “I think she made me a good student overall.”

St. James opened in 1941, but its future is in doubt. There are only 106 students in the school, pre-school through 8^th grade.

“I’ll teach as long as I have a job,” Sister Marilyn said. “There are people who are very dedicated to keeping this school open.” She concedes that small Catholic schools in the Diocese of Belleville are in trouble. If not as a teacher, what might she do next?

“I’ve been getting a nudge to do something for the poor. I haven’t acted on it yet,” she said.

Until that day, Sister Marilyn is content to keep making a difference in the lives of the students at St. James.

“She really helps the kids to succeed,” Gerteisen said. “Without her, a lot of kids wouldn’t get the help they need.”