Sister Barbara Reynolds

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Sr. Barbara Reynolds, SDS often says her vocation story has three threads: mathematics, teaching, and Salvatorians.  In eighth grade, she discovered mathematics and announced to her family that when she grew up she was going to “go to college and study mathematics.”  When she finished high school, she went to Saint Louis University (SLU) and majored in mathematics.  After resisting the idea for several years that a girl who studies mathematics should be a teacher, she found herself drawn to a Teacher Corps program in Tampa, Florida, and fell in love with teaching seventh graders.  Then she spent two years with the Peace Corps, teaching math in Ghana, West Africa. 

In 1975, she returned to SLU from Ghana to continue studying mathematics.  There she met several Salvatorian Sisters on campus, and they invited her to “come and see” their life in Milwaukee.  She quickly felt at home in Salvatorian community and visited regularly several times a year for the next three years.  In 1979, fresh out of graduate school, she moved to Milwaukee and entered Salvatorian community as a candidate. 

In that same year, she began teaching at Cardinal Stritch College (now Cardinal Stritch University).  She took first vows with the Salvatorian Sisters in 1983, and final vows in 1994.  Recent years find her continuing to teach mathematics at Cardinal Stritch, teaching English in Tanzania in the summers, visiting her mom in Delaware, and speaking about Salvatorian missions at various parishes across the United States.  Her vocation as a mathematician, a teacher, and a Salvatorian continues to evolve year by year.  God’s call and God’s grace have brought her far, and she says she trusts that God will continue to allow her vocational story to unfold.