By Jon Campisi
Times Staff Writer
She’s small in stature, and when she speaks, her voice barely rises above a whisper.
But shy she’s not, something readily apparent by the subject matter she has been tackling for 25 years.
Her name is Sister Nora Dennehy, and while it may seem strange for a woman who belongs to a religious order to be dabbling in such a sensitive topic as teenage pregnancy, it’s exactly what takes up much of her time.
Sister Nora’s life journey began in Northeast Philadelphia, where she was born and raised in the area of Cottman and Castor avenues.
When she got a little older, she actually had a two-year stint writing for the Northeast Times, back when it was simply called The Times, and she credits that experience with instilling in her a lifelong passion for writing, which is an important component of her job as a trained psychologist.
What’s interesting is that Sister Nora started her newspaper reporting when she was in seventh grade, around 1946 or ’47. She applied in writing to be a freelancer; she was offered the position without ever having set foot in the newsroom.
During her second year writing, her school gave her permission to tour the paper’s headquarters, and it was then that her employers discovered that their new hire was literally a “cub” reporter.
“Once they saw me, I guess they knew my age,” Sister Nora said with a smile.
During a recent interview at CORA Services in Fox Chase, where her title is Lifeline Program coordinator, Sister Nora discussed everything from her newswriting days and her psychology training to her decision to join a religious order and devote her life to both God and man. Mankind, that is, since much of her work involves coaching young expectant mothers.
That actually started a quarter-century ago, when she began holding meetings once a week to counsel teenage and young adult mothers-to-be on the trials and tribulations of pregnancy.
While it seems these days that preventive measures are stressed more to younger people, Sister Nora does not believe in turning her back on those who are already pregnant. Rather, she aims to help guide the young people through this phase of their lives.
Apparently she’s doing something right.
“Word has kind of gotten out,” Sister Nora said, noting that she gets client referrals from doctors, schools and even the court system.
Attendance at the weekly sessions varies, and the list of participants is kept strictly confidential. Sister Nora runs the program, dubbed CORA-LIFELINE, with a registered nurse and a case manager. At times, they bring in guest lecturers in the fields of obstetrics, pediatrics, nutrition and law to assist the young mothers.
Over the years, the program has been opened to fathers-to-be, as well as family members, since Sister Nora considers it important to be all-inclusive when addressing the issue.
“I thought that the young fathers need a program like this as much as the young mothers,” Sister Nora explained.
As for the parents who participate, she said, “They are very helpful to one another.”
Over the years, parents have even befriended other parents, since everyone is in the same situation, and they have the tools to support one another because they share a common life experience, Sister Nora said. She recalled the time two couples began holding quarterly meetings at their respective homes, something that was spawned by participation in CORA’s program.
CORA-LIFELINE consists of the weekly group sessions, a monthly support group for parents of pregnant teens, and a monthly series for adolescent parents-to-be.
As for Sister Nora, her desire to become a nun may have started at a young age.
“As a child, I loved to read,” she said. “I’d read (about) the lives of the saints and I wanted to be just like them.”
She also considered herself blessed to have grown up in America, since her parents were handed a more difficult lot in life. Her mother and father were natives of Ireland but fled during the 1920s, around the time of the Black and Tans war, which established Irish independence from the United Kingdom.
Actually, his parents met while on a boat making its way to the United States. Both had viewed America as a place where they could practice their religion freely.
Sister Nora’s own life has taken her along different paths. She has spent time living in a convent, lived in Washington, D.C., for six years while stationed at a provincial order, obtained her doctorate in psychology and has performed social work. She credits her days as a young reporter with helping her in that phase of her career, since she had to write many reports during her time as a social worker.
“It was a very positive experience because it was an experience in writing,” she said of her days as a child reporter.
But for all of her accomplishments in life, things undoubtedly could have turned out very different had this petite yet highly spirited woman decided to pursue her first career choice.
“I really wanted to be a politician because I thought that’s how you get out and meet people,” she said with a smile. ••
Reporter Jon Campisi can be reached at 215-354-3038 or jcampisi@phillynews.com