Bipeds of Brookland: Sr. Licia Lupinacci

Posted by Abbott Klar Real Estate on Thursday, June 1st, 2017 at 9:06pm

Bipeds of Brookland: Sr. Licia Lupinacci
Sr. Licia Lupinacci

Sr. Licia Lupinacci was born the ninth child of a family in a village in southern Italy.  She remembers Germans troops occupying a village nearby and hearing American planes bombing before Allied troops landed.  Two of her older sisters had joined the Little Workers of Sacred Heart and so she spent much time visiting the convent as a child.  At 16, she decided to become a sister, too.

 

At 20, she came to the US, landing at Ellis Island and speaking no English. She and other nuns traveled to DC to work at the St Josaphat Ukrainian Catholic Seminary on Taylor St.

 

In 1973, the sisters moved to their current house on 15th Street, NE. They furnished it with donations from neighbors. One day a neighbor asked if they would watch her child. They agreed, and at the end of the day she returned and gave them $15 for the help. The sisters decided this could be a good way to support their home, and they started a preschool. Sr. Licia had worked with children in Italy so she took the classes she needed in the U.S. and became director of the preschool. “We love Children,” she says.  The other sisters talk about her special knack for working with troubled kids. They cared for many children over the years and still run the preschool, but now serve a smaller number of children, the majority of whom are supported by scholarship donations.

 

Sr. Licia is also good with roses and planted the many bushes that surround the convent.  She is happy to go to Mass every day in their chapel which is decorated with roses cut from the garden. She recalls that Brookland was called “Little Rome” due to the large number of religious houses throughout the neighborhood. She has fond memories of walking each day in the 1950s after dinner to see the progress as The National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception was being built, now the largest Roman Catholic Church in North America.

1 Response to Bipeds of Brookland: Sr. Licia Lupinacci

Sr. Deirdre Byrne,POSC wrote:

Great story Tom, Thank you!!!
We love you Sr. Licia !! Keep up the good work.

Posted on Monday, June 5th, 2017 at 3:17pm

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