Once There Was A Nun: Mary McCarran’s Years as Sister Mary Mercy
About this ebook
In 1925 Mary McCarran joined her sister Margaret in the Convent of the Holy Names. Here is the story of the black-garbed postulant, hopeful and homesick. Here is the nun, tried and proven, exchanging vows for a gold wedding ring.
Sister Mary Mercy made her greatest sacrifice in a small convent room where, after thirty-two years, she exchanged her beloved habit for a new pink dress—and returned to the secular world.
This is Mary McCarran’s unforgettable and inspiring story of those three decades as a member of a religious community.
“An apparently faithful view of some inner workings of the Catholic Church seldom revealed dispassionately to the public at large...an altogether extraordinary story told in an extraordinary manner.”—NEW YORK JOURNAL AMERICAN
About the author
Ruth Shick Montgomery (June 11, 1912 - June 10, 2001) was a journalist with a long career as a reporter and syndicated columnist in Washington, D.C. She later became a self-proclaimed psychic and author of numerous books on occult and New Age subjects. Montgomery began her long journalism profession as a cub reporter for Waco-News-Tribune while receiving her education at Baylor University (1930-1935). She graduated from Purdue University in 1934 and began work as a reporter on the Louisville Herald-Post. In 1943, she became the first female reporter in the Washington bureau of the New York Daily News, and embarked on her extensive Washington, D.C. career. She covered notable foreign affairs, such as the Berlin Airlift, was a syndicated columnist for Hearst Headlines and United Press International and was a well-read correspondent with the International News Service. At Franklin D. Roosevelt’s funeral, Montgomery was the only female of the 12 invited reporters. In 1950, while a reporter for the New York Daily News, she was voted president of the Women’s National Press Club. In 1959, she was a member of then Vice-President Richard Nixon’s press corps on his tour of Russia. Montgomery wrote of her 25 years covering Washington in her 1970 book, Hail to the Chiefs; My Life and Times with Six Presidents. Montgomery wrote annual newspaper columns listing predictions by psychic Jeane Dixon beginning in 1952. In 1962, Once There was a Nun: Mary McCarran’s Years as Sister Mary Mercy was published and thus began Montgomery’s long career as a non-fiction author. In 1965 her book, A Gift of Prophecy about Jeane Dixon was published and became a best-seller, selling over 3 million copies. Montgomery retired from her journalism career in 1969. She held honorary doctor of law degrees from Baylor University and Ashland College. She died in 2001, a day before her 89th birthday.
