Community Building

By Associate Vicki Welsh

This is a vocation story about a girl from a good Catholic family who grew up on the very Catholic West Side of Cincinnati. She was a young woman who grew to see a “need” and say “I could do that!” She became a community builder with words as simple as, “Come over and play cards with us.” She knew innately that the invitation was the strongest evangelical tool she had. She was good at it; she’d invite, people came. But let’s start at the beginning.

S. Joyce Brehm was the third oldest of nine children who grew up with a good Catholic core and compass. As a Price Hill girl, S. Joyce attended St. William’s parish and grade school and Seton for high school. The Sisters of Charity served in many and nearly all positions in church and school. When it came to college, S. Joyce opted for Thomas More College in Northern Kentucky.

Now this is where S. Joyce’s story gets interesting. She signed up for Thomas More’s Work Study Program. Her first assignment did not work out. Her second assignment was to Santa Maria Community Services. S. Kateri Maureen Koverman served as social worker.

What a beautiful role model of a religious vocation S. Kateri Maureen was! S. Kateri quickly worked her mentoring influence on S. Joyce. This was during the Vietnam War.

Catholic Relief Services needed all sorts of people with certain skills to volunteer. S. Kateri had the skills and the desire. She was waiting for the Sisters of Charity to give their final permission to go. S. Joyce recalls, “… She comes in … like Loretta Young, with her garb flowing behind her … she was on cloud nine, the Community was letting her go to Vietnam!” In a wistful tone, S. Joyce describes the very short frantic few days. She helped S. Kateri organize the office in preparation for Sister’s replacement. One minute S. Joyce had a God-given mentor in S. Kateri, and the next S. Joyce Brehm entered the Sisters of Charity in 1972. moment that mentor was gone to Vietnam! But S. Joyce continued going to Thomas More and working at Santa Maria. Enter ‘Bob,’ a sociology teacher at the College of Mount St. Joseph, who just so happened to work at Santa Maria. S. Joyce recounts, “I was visiting him one day in his office and he says to me, ‘Have you ever thought of becoming a Sister of Charity? Kateri thought you would make a good one.’ I said yes I had thought about it, and his response, ‘When are you going to do something about it?’” She wrote to S. Kateri that night and was referred to S. Alfreda Alexander. This was a time soon after Vatican II. By the time the paperwork had all been completed and S. Joyce was ready for the pre-entrance program, it was 1972. Today S. Joyce Brehm is the sole Sister celebrating her Golden Jubilee in 2022! S. Joyce completed her college work at Thomas More with a teaching certificate in math and began teaching grade school at Resurrection in Price Hill (Cincinnati). This only lasted two years. “Teaching was definitely not my gift,” S. Joyce admits. “I couldn’t discipline the classroom!” S. Joan Groff was provincial of the Sisters of Charity at this time. She suggested that S. Joyce make a move to working with the elderly. She saw in S. Joyce a gift she had in working with the senior population. So for nine years, S. Joyce, with no sociology or psychology background, visited (From left) Sisters Joyce Brehm and the late Jean Therese Durbin shared a the senior, sickly, and depressed clientele at a Home Health special friendship that took them to various ministries and locations throughout Service in the West End of Cincinnati. the years.

(Back, from left) Associates Patty Broughton, Irene Diesel, Vicki Welsh (front, left) and Kathy Vogelpohl (front, right) are grateful for the friendships and community they have built with S. Joyce Brehm (front, center).

In S. Joyce’s preparation for final vows, she made the Jesuit 19 Annotated Retreat. She used this time, besides her assigned goals, to discern what she wanted to do after her final vows. She reflected on all she had already experienced and took into account her diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis. She had already begun to feel the effects of the MS; it was harder to walk distances, fatigue, and sensitivity to extreme temperatures. In her discernment she believed she needed to go to Georgia, where life moved slower and work with S. Jean Therese Durbin was calling!

From this point on, S. Joyce was never far from S. Jean until the time of S. Jean Therese’s death. There was always something to be done and S. Joyce could do it. The first task S. Jean gave her was to take the car, pick up a load of children and take them swimming in the park! After that, S. Marie Daniel (Danny) Delaney needed help with Meals on Wheels. S. Joyce quickly responded, “Okay, God, why wouldn’t I come? I can do that!”

This began S. Joyce’s many years of going and doing what was needed at the time. Even when a particular priest said he had a need for a Sister and it turned out to be a housekeeper he was looking for, she looked around and visited nursing homes, taught CCD classes and anything she could find to do for a year and a half.

S. Joyce would spend the next 10 years in Georgia, then to Tennessee with S. Jean working in mission parishes inviting and creating Church communities that could function. If RCIA classes were needed, she did it, if a Finance Board was needed, she started it. Programs for young and old alike were initiated to create a tight Christian community.

By 1991 both Sisters Jean and Joyce were ready to move closer to home. In Dayton, they spent nine years inviting

As the sole member of her Band, S. Joyce Brehm celebrated her Golden Jubilee as a Sister of Charity of Cincinnati in August 2022.

and doing what needed to be done. They ministered to the needs of the Associates in the area, and to the homeless. They provided necessary support services to other Sisters of Charity in and around the Dayton area. They held Bible Study for their parish, all the while creating community.

Their next move was to St. Joseph’s Infant Home, then finally to the Motherhouse. Within a few years, S. Joyce landed in the Archives. There was always something to do there and she has been given several specific projects along the way. Most recently you may have seen her posting photos on Charitynet inviting readers to write captions for the photos. “I get a lot more than just a caption,” she shares. “I get memories, names, and stories.”

There you go, S. Joyce, still inviting and creating community! Writer’s Note: This article could not include all the many ways S. Joyce Brehm has extended her arms as she has invited men and women to come together in love and community! Firsthand accounts of three women whose lives S. Joyce has touched – Associates Patty Broughton, Irene Diesel, and Kathy Vogelpohl – can be found on the SC website at www.srcharitycinti.org.