Dianne “Mary Kenneth” Shaw

“Teach all that is necessary for life.”
-St. Julie Billiart

Sister Dianne Shaw, SNDdeN is the older of two children born in Lawrence, Massachusetts to Beatrice (Jeffrey) and Kenneth T. Shaw, with her brother, Ken being five years younger. Both parents were born in the U.S. while her maternal grandparents were immigrants from England. Her father’s parents were born in the U.S.

She went to public elementary and only encountered the Sisters of Notre Dame on Sundays as they directed Religious Education in St. Monica Parish, Methuen, Mass. “They were mysterious beings and, much to my dismay, my parents insisted that I go to St. Mary High School in Lawrence,” she recalls. “My adjustment was far from easy, but, as I got to know the Sisters I felt more at home. To my own and others’ utter amazement, I felt drawn to enter Notre Dame, in my mind, on a trial basis, in 1960. I discovered that I loved teaching and have been in some form of education ever since. I feel that the risk-taking in my life was moving to the inner city to live and work, then to rural New Hampshire and back again.”

She began teaching in 1965, starting at St. Gregory Elementary School in Dorchester, then at St. Augustine School, Lawrence. She was an elementary school counselor in East Boston and St. Augustine’s, and director of Religious Education in Enfield, N.H.

Her move to New Mexico in 2008 to serve as a school counselor at St. Bonaventure Mission and School opened her eyes and heart to a new culture, the Navajos. After returning to Massachusetts in 2016, she retired and began volunteering at Notre Dame Education Center in Lawrence.

“I have loved every mission and ministry and feel blessed to have experienced firsthand how good the good God is!”

Updated in 2026.