St. Christopher Ladies Guild Woman of the Month
The Ordinary Saint in My Life: Eileen Sullivan
by Nancy Sullivan
After Pentecost we enter the liturgical season of Ordinary Time when the church vestments turn to green, symbolizing hope and spiritual growth. “Ordinary” does not mean insignificant, but instead comes from the fact that our Sundays are simply numbered (ordered) and not part of the major seasons like Advent, Christmas, Lent, or Easter. Ordinary Time is meant to be a period of extraordinary spiritual growth as we study Jesus’ teachings as well as the actions of the saints. It is a time to deepen our discipleship both inwardly and outwardly in the world. One way to do this is to reflect on the lives of those “ordinary” saints who have been or are now present in our lives. Not all saints are canonized. Nor are they perfect persons. As Soren Kierkegaard famously wrote: “To be a saint is to will the one thing.” And that “one thing” in the midst of all of life’s complexities is to live in and through God’s love. One such person in my life is my mother-in-law, Eileen Sullivan.
Eileen Bilka was born in 1938 in the small town of Shelby, Ohio. She was the youngest child born to her immigrant parents, James and Mary, and had 5 much older siblings. She grew up steeped in the values and Catholic faith of her hardworking parents and surrounded by the love of family. At a young age she married her high school sweetheart, Don Thurman, and left her hometown accepting the call and sacrifices of being a military wife. Don was a pilot for the United States Air Force and a graduate of the Test Pilot Training School. Eileen put her considerable skills to work in caring for her growing young family and managing their frequent moves to various military bases across the country. The years of 1969-70 were exceptionally challenging as she managed homelife with 5 small children while dealing with the anxiety of Don serving in the Vietnam War where he completed 200 missions. Then in 1971, Eileen and her young family made the ultimate sacrifice when Don was killed as a result of a plane crash during a training run. Widowed at age 33 with 5 children ages 3 to 11, she moved her family from California back to her hometown of Shelby to be near the support of family. Eileen credits the strength she received from her Catholic faith and the love of family and friends with helping her cope with this heartbreaking loss. She describes the duty of caring for her children one day at a time as the saving grace that pulled her through that most agonizing first year.
Eventually Eileen left the cocoon of Shelby, moving her family to Dayton, Ohio to be near Wright Patterson Air Force Base and the opportunities it afforded her family. She went to work supporting her family as a secretary to a general at Wright Pat. She developed deep friendships with women in her parish and started a monthly rosary group that still meets to this day. She met the many challenges of being a single parent during those 15 years with resilience and hope. She says now with a hearty laugh: “I naively believed that if I could just get them all through to high school graduation then my work would be done!” Just as she was preparing to send her youngest child off to the University of Cincinnati and looking forward to more freedom, her life took an unexpected turn.
The writer Renee Roden says: “Grace is an interruption. Grace says to us: There is another way this story can go. Grace veers us away from the cliff edge we were careening towards. Grace can be a roadblock, a u-turn, a fork in the road, a new path opening up.” Grace came to Eileen in the person of my widowed father-in-law, Ken Sullivan, who had lost his beloved wife Ginny to cancer. With six children ages 11 to 23, he was struggling with grief and the demands of single parenting. Then at a Sunday mass and again at the grocery store, Ken ran into fellow parishioner, Eileen Thurman. He said that he discerned very strongly the whisperings of the Holy Spirit guiding him to ask her out. When after a few dates Ken proposed, Eileen responded as any sane woman would at the idea of creating a family of 13: “You’re crazy!” But my father-in-law was a charming and persuasive salesman and ordinary saints have a special capacity for adventure in their service of God and others. After prayerful consideration, Eileen said yes to Ken and the call of a new marriage. She committed also to serving the needs of 11 children ages 25 to 11, and navigating all the chaos that this entailed. Together the couple built a marriage based on profound respect, small acts of loving service to each other, and a deep and abiding gratitude for their new partnership, having experienced such deep loss before. They set out to unify their family through sacrificial acts of love offered not only to each of their children, but to each new spouse and grandchild that joined the growing clan, as well as to their extended families, including those of their deceased spouses. And this was not at all easy, as anyone familiar with the differing personalities and resulting hurts and perceived slights that are a natural part of family life knows. Shepherding a large number of young people through their teens and twenties requires uncommon patience, a spirit of forgiveness, and a healthy sense of humor.
Years later Ken and Eileen would laugh and admit that they had no idea what they were in for. But their deep faith, prayer life, and love of the eucharist gave them the fortitude to build a home where all felt welcome and loved. They made a heroic effort to be present at all of the celebratory events, from planning weddings to crisscrossing the country for countless baptisms, first communions, and graduations. They were also present at the challenging moments; caring for fussy newborns and crazy toddlers, moving furniture, cleaning and helping with home repair, nurturing the sick and consoling the grieving. Eileen, a very talented cook, hosted countless family dinners, none more greatly anticipated than Thanksgiving. For decades, far flung family members moved heaven and earth to travel to Dayton for this celebratory weekend reuniting a family that grew to encompass 52 members. Eileen and Ken took special delight in their 28 grandchildren who grew closer with each gathering. Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a wedding feast. It might also be like Thanksgiving at 3431 O’Hara Drive.
Eileen’s life of loving service demonstrates that love is not a finite commodity. St. John Paul II expressed this reality as the “Law of the Gift”, which is the paradoxical truth that the more we give our love away, the more we receive. St. Teresa of Calcutta knew this truth too. She said: “Do not think that love in order to be genuine has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired. Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.”
Widowed once again in 2020 after a beautiful 24 year marriage to Ken, Eileen continues to be a source of love and a witness to her faith. Her youthful spirit at age 87 inspires me as she remains active in her parish, delivers baked goods to homeless shelters, cares for her homebound friends, and serves as the spiritual anchor for her family which now includes 14 great grandchildren. Once a month she hosts a cooking show via zoom for her grandchildren so that they might learn her tricks of the trade along with a little wisdom sprinkled in with the recipes. As their various windows pop up on the computer screen, laughter and chatter fills the air and the love for their grandma is palpable as her grandchildren stand in their respective kitchens eager to cook along with her. I see Eileen in her kitchen measuring ingredients into a mixing bowl and I am reminded of Jesus’ words in Luke 6:38, “Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in in return be measured out to you.” I am profoundly grateful for Eileen’s presence in my life.
Who are the “ordinary saints” in your life?