Loretta Dwyer

Sister Loretta Dwyer, SNDdeN was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Emmett and Loretta (Bour) Dwyer. The oldest of three with two younger brothers, Sister Loretta was used to being in charge. She entered the SNDdeNs in 1956 after graduating from high school, took her first vows in 1959 and final vows in 1964. 

“My first impression of the Sisters was that they were soft spoken, smiled, and were quiet but seemed to know what they were doing,” she recalls. “I told my mother, ‘I want to be just like them.’”

When the time came for her to answer the call to religious life, her mother initially refused to allow it. 

“My father said to her, ‘Do you want her to be happy or do you want her to stay here?’” That made the difference. After she entered and was sent on different missions, her parents came for monthly visits, no matter the distance.

Sister Loretta taught at a number of Catholic schools: St. Mary in Branford, St. John in Montville, St. Mary in Newington, St. Aedan in New Haven and Assumption in Westport, Connecticut. But she’s most proud of teaching boys in the juvenile court detention system. 

“I wanted to give them a fresh start,” she says. “Some of them couldn’t read or write, and so I worked with them.” Most importantly, she treated them with dignity.

When she left for another mission, one boy told Sister Loretta that she was the best teacher they ever had. Why?  

“I never asked them what they did to land in the detention center,” she shares. “That was important to them – that they weren’t treated differently based on their past.”

Sister Loretta also started a preschool program serving Spanish-speaking families at Sacred Heart Parish in Hartford, Connecticut. While others were going to foreign mission fields, she knew she could help people right there in Hartford.

“Religious life has given me a lot of opportunities,” she shares.

On her 70th Jubilee in 2026, Sister Loretta acknowledged that she didn’t exactly emulate those soft-spoken, quiet Sisters she first encountered, but God has been good to her.

“I’m grateful that I’m alive, and I can relate well with people,” she says. “I talk a lot and have a sense of humor. My goal is to make people smile.”