Meeting the Foundress

Annamarie Cook, SLW, Foundress of the Sisters of the Living Word, was born Rita Cook in 1914.  She was orphaned very early in life when both of her young parents died in the 1918 flu epidemic.  From the age of four, she was raised by her maternal grandmother, Anna Rogers.  Throughout her life, Annamarie treasured the memories of her grandmother's love and her Irish heritage.

At age 21, Rita Cook entered Maria Immaculata Convent in Wilmette and a year later became Sister Annamarie, a Sister of Christian Charity.  In 1938, at St. Mary School, Riverdale, IL, she began her long career in the field of education.  From 1949 to 1958, she was a teacher, then the principal, of St. Gregory High School, Chicago.  From there she went to Maria Immaculata Convent in Wilmette, first as teacher and principal in the high school and then as dean of Mallinckrodt College.  In 1965 she became the Provincial Superior of the North American Western Province of the Sisters of Christian Charity.

Annamarie Cook's term as Provincial Superior began as the Second Vatican Council effected changes in the entire Catholic Church, including the life of vowed women religious.  John XXIII urged the Sisters to study the signs of the times and adapt their life and ministry according to the needs of the contemporary world.  Annamarie Cook took this challenge seriously and urged her Sisters to study the documents of Vatican II, especially those related to the Church in the World and the Renewal of Consecrated Religious Life.  She emphasized mutual respect and interdependence, an awareness of personal gifts and the need to use these for the good of the Church/World.  The Sisters within the North American Western Province enthusiastically took up her challenge and followed her lead in seeing contemporary world needs in the light of the Scriptures, especially the Gospels and the example of Jesus.

By 1975, under Annamarie Cook's leadership, the Sisters realized their view of contemporary religious life and its ways of ministering to the needs of others were not shared by members of the international congregation in other parts of the world.  In August 1975, at the suggestion of a representative in the Vatican office for religious congregations, Annamarie Cook led 90 Sisters to establish a new religious community: the Sisters of the Living Word.  At that time she was unanimously chosen as the first major superior of the new religious congregation.

She held this position until 1980 when she asked the community to accept her resignation from this office.  For the next few years Annamarie Cook devoted her time to writing the developing Constitutions of the new Community and also writing her autobiography, including the circumstances that led her to the major step of 1975.

Through these past 30 years the Sisters of the Living Word have known and loved Annamarie Cook as a person of courage and fortitude blended with a gentle, affirming leadership.  In 1983 they unanimously acclaimed Annamarie Cook as the Foundress who gave direction and strong leadership to those first 90 Sisters of the Living Word.

Annamarie Cook, SLW, died Thursday, October 20, 2005, after suffering multiple injuries in an automobile accident.