Geraldine Burns

Sister Geraldine Burns, SNDdeN grew up in the Boston area (Charlestown) as the second oldest of six children; five girls and a boy.  They all attended St. Mary Grammar School in their home parish.  The girls continued on to Julie Billiart High School in Boston’s North End while Geraldine’s brother attended Christopher Columbus High School next door.   

“My father was a Boston firefighter and my mother worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston,” she says.  “They both worked very hard to provide for us and to put us all through school.”  

Being taught by the Sisters had an enormous impact on Sister Geraldine’s choice of vocation: “I loved high school and joined everything that was offered, so I spent a lot of time at school. What I saw during my high school years is what I wanted for myself. The Sisters I had in school were a great influence in me becoming an SNDdeN.”  

The same year she graduated, 1965, Sister Geraldine entered the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. She completed her bachelor’s degree at Emmanuel College in 1970, and her first mission took her to Julie Country Day School in Leominster, where she taught second grade.   

“I was thrilled… but I had no idea where Leominster was,” she recalls.  “I thought I was going to the end of the earth.” 

From there, Sister Geraldine served at Our Lady of the Angels in Worcester, teaching first grade, and then on to Bishop Fenwick High School in Peabody. She has wonderful memories of each mission, but Bishop Fenwick remains close to her heart, partly because she lived in community with some of the same Sisters who had taught her in high school at Julie Billiart.   

“I went to Fenwick to teach math, which I always wanted to do, and then I got my master’s in administration (Salem State College, 1980) and became the vice principal,” she shares.   

Advice from St. Julie has shaped both her teaching and mentoring: “You can’t use the same methods every time, they work on the first occasion and fail on the next hundred. You have to vary them.” She often shared this with new teachers as a reminder to stay flexible and attentive to students’ needs.   

To those discerning a vocation today, Sister Geraldine encourages prayer, reflection and curiosity: “Don’t hesitate to find out more of what it is that is attracting you to religious life.”  What gives her hope is seeing the spirit of St. Julie alive across the globe.  “Those working in Notre Dame ministries make sure that the goodness of God is felt wherever they are and whatever they do.”  

Now serving as support coordinator for the East-West Province’s Northeast Region, Sister Geraldine continues to live out her call with gratitude, wisdom and enduring love for Notre Dame de Namur. “I am especially grateful for all of the students I encountered during 47 years of teaching,” she says. “There is nothing I would have rather done.”  

Updated in 2025