Jerry Pellegrino
Longtime Friend of Walsh University
On the evening of Tuesday, June 22, 1982, Mother Teresa, age 72, quietly stepped off a private plane at the Akron-Canton Airport and was greeted by a small welcoming group that included Gerald and Becky Pellegrino, Walsh’s third President Br. Francis Blouin, F.I.C., and Walsh’s Director of Development Norman Kutz. The following day, Wednesday, June 23, Mother Teresa visited Walsh University’s campus and spoke to a crowd of approximately 2,000 people in the Physical Education Center, where she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Human Services. The world mourned her passing on September 5, 1997. When Mother Teresa was canonized as Saint Teresa of Calcutta by Pope Francis on September 4, 2016, Walsh University became one of a select number of Catholic universities in the world that can count a Saint among its alumni. Her 1982 visit to Walsh was the culmination of several years of work that began with a honeymoon flight, a London Bishop, and ultimately, God’s will.
In June 1977, my wife Becky and I were on our honeymoon. On our return flight home from London, we befriended Bishop Gerard Mahon, Bishop of West London, who had worked with Mother Teresa. We talked about our common desire to serve the poor, and Bishop Mahon promised to pass on our invitation to Mother Teresa to visit Stark County. After five years of correspondence and conversation with the Bishop, she finally accepted.
What I remember about her visit in 1982 was that she didn’t seek attention or adoration. She spent one night in Canton and refused to sleep in a bed at the Our Lady of Peace convent. She said it was a reminder that the poor she served had no beds. She also insisted on using a bucket to bathe. I remember the Sisters were scrambling to find her a clean bucket to use for washing. She had no real luggage except a small worn bag and she wore her trademark white sari with the blue border, a gray cardigan and brown sandals.
The airlines demanded that you ID your luggage, so someone had tied a small paper hangtag to her bag that simply said ‘Mother Teresa.’ Everyone in the world knew who she was. She was the most recognized person on this planet. She was also one of the nicest people you’d ever want to meet.
I remember she got a kick out of the police using their sirens while escorting her car to McKinley High School’s Umstattd Hall, where she also spoke.
Between her morning press conference and address at Walsh and her afternoon appearance at Umstattd Hall, she visited the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration at nearby Sancta Clara Monastery.
Everyone wanted to host her after her talk at Walsh. The simple solution was to have the Poor Clares make her lunch. She was supposed to have a light lunch and take a nap because she was weary. But when we got to Sancta Clara, she found out they were having Perpetual Adoration. I remember she took off like a rocket down the hallway. There was nothing that was going to stop her from kneeling on the hard terrazzo floor in prayer.
Her visit only lasted 22 hours. She left Stark County as quietly as she had arrived on the private plane of our Walsh advisory board member L.J. “Vern” Riesbeck, accompanied by Br. Francis and Norm Kutz on her flight to Minneapolis.
After her visit to Walsh, Becky and I continued to keep in touch with her in Calcutta mostly by phone, which she surprisingly would answer herself. We also exchanged letters with her, and she even invited us to Calcutta. We donated the letters for preservation by her Mission, but I can remember that they were actually written in pencil. She later told me that the doctoral robe we presented to her at Walsh was remade into vestments for priests in need, and that the frame from her proclamation from the City of Canton was re-purposed as a wedding gift for Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. She simply had no space for material possessions.
What she brought to Canton was an awareness of people in need. She urged people to give from their need, not just their excess. You can’t outdo the Holy Spirit. You cannot out give the Holy Spirit. Everything we have is from God. She said there were saints among us, people who give you a peek of what Heaven is like. She was that for all of us who met her during that visit.
Br. Francis told me years later that her visit was the best thing that could’ve happened to Walsh at that time. After she came, all these other Nobel Laureates came to Walsh. And they came because she had been there first. It helped to raise the awareness of Walsh to a whole new level. Becky and I might have helped to initiative the invitation for her to come to Walsh, but I like to think it was the Holy Spirit that ultimately guided her.