What would you like to know about St. Joan of Arc? Do you have a story about our parish or of general interest that you think others would like to hear? For story ideas, contact Jeff Rholl, jeff@stjoan.com.
The following article is an interview with a member of St. Joan of Arc parish. The primary purpose of these articles is to allow a particular parishioner an opportunity to share some part of his/her story or journey. These written snapshots are conversations between two people in which the person being interviewed willingly shares his/her ups, downs, reflections and life lessons with you the reader. We hope that you enjoy these conversations and that they are helpful to your spiritual pilgrimage.
Forty-seven floors above street level one gets a stunning view of western Minneapolis. It is also a place you can find Carol Berg O’Toole’s law office. As offices go, Carol’s is small and she is a small, trim woman, but that is where any idea of smallness ends. Things got more expansive when I asked her some work related questions. What I was immediately introduced to, was her efficiency. Carol can stay on point and at the same time pull up with one hand, supporting documentation to her statements. As she talked, out came a resume which announced impressive academic and legal credentials and a wide scope of community activities and interests. We were talking because Carol had agreed to go another extra mile and serve as Chair to the St. Joan of Arc Parish Council, a one year commitment.
Once Carol started to tell her story, I could see why she loves this diminutive office with its panoramic view of the western suburbs. You can’t quite see it, but Carol knows it’s out there; Hot Springs, South Dakota, Southern Gateway to the Black Hills. That is where she was born in 1943, to Doris and Homer Berg. She grew up in Fargo, North Dakota the second of five children. Historically, it was a time when men and women had roles everyone understood. Carol was smart and she knew she was headed for college, and she was encouraged by proud approving parents. Her return approval of them is her insistence on Carol Berg O’Toole. Her father told her to pick between education and nursing, a woman's career choice of the time. She initially followed his advice and went into education. At this point in our conversation she stopped and said; “I am going to do something that may shock you, but talking about my father, he died a few years ago and so did my mother. My father wrote his own obituary before he died - I think to make everything easier for those left behind. While probating my father’s estate I decided to follow his lead and write my own.” So again her hand reached into her file and pulled up a copy of her unpublished obituary. It was a first for me, no one to date has ever handed me their pre-written obituary but the lesson was there......if you don’t like what you read, there is time to make changes.
Carol Berg O’Toole does not brag. If you talk to her for awhile, you discover that she thinks logically and fast, she has a trained mind that seeks facts and she is very much what some might call a pragmatic realist, and I am told a respected attorney. She didn’t give me that pre-written obituary to impress me, she just wanted me to have the facts. Let’s just say in reading page one I saw that Carol had more than paid her dues to the gods of education. She earned her B.S. in three years and taught school, but in the early 70s’ Carol really did start her academic climb. She received a masters in Industrial relations and then a doctorate in Philosophy and Educational Administration. She kept going and after a brief stint as personnel director and labor negotiator for the Mounds View School District she went on to Law School at the University of Minnesota. She was admitted to the bar in 1981 and in 1982 she started her own law firm. Carol’s niche is that she specializes in representing employers in labor, employment and education law. By any standards Carol Berg O’Toole has built an impressive work and community career. As I was scanning this list of accomplishments, my eye caught one line that was typed in along with all the other achievements; it was about having been the Sweetheart of Kappa Psi Fraternity in college.
At twenty-one, Carol married and hence the name O’Toole. They had two daughters. Both are now grown and pursuing their own careers. Carol’s life isn’t just a list of achievements; like everyone else, hers has twists and turns. In 1992 her marriage ended and she did some soul searching. Our individual gene pools respond to change differently. Carol Berg O’Toole is a woman born in the Dakota plains, and she just may have drawn on that great ancestral strength to go in the direction she did. Carol had actually started to run in 1978 and continued running, only this time with more passion. She trained for a marathon with her daughter and in 1997 ran and finished it at the age of forty-seven. She had started flying lessons in 1989 and attained a flying license. The 2.99 miles around Lake Harriet are still part of her routine. “I love to run to feel the wind coming into my lungs.“ There are three things that have prominence in Carol’s office and give you a sense of this woman. On the window ledge is a set a binoculars to watch planes take off and land. There is a framed print of the 1997 Twin City Marathon in which she ran. And on one wall hangs a historical document, a land deed belonging to her grandfather and signed by President Wm. H. Taft, October 4, 1909 that she says reminds her of her Dakota roots.
| “I have never thought the Plains made me, but I think you may be correct. I get filled up and centered every time I go back by both the flat grassland and the people who are so understated, many times quiet and have this dry, kidding-like humor." - Carol Berg O’Toole |
Carol O’Toole’s North Dakota religion is more cookbook than Catholic. Her mother was indeed Catholic, but her father was Lutheran, and childhood religious memories include her grandmother reading from her Lutheran Bible at Christmas or being invited to some high holidays because her best friend was Jewish. Carol’s growing up experiences and mind don't permit her to be parochial and she knows truth comes from many directions. She started coming to St. Joan‘s in 1974 like others, as she said, “A spiritual refugee.” She stayed on because she could sit each Sunday and listen to the diversity of voices speaking about their spiritual insights or journeys. Again her trained mind went into action, and she recited so many names of women and men who have spoken at St. Joan’s. “ It is remarkable for who they all were and for what they have said. The diverse voices of all these women and men speaking to me have caused me to think, to rethink, to change, to do something, and yes, sometimes to cry. On a very personal note I joined the Singles 40+ for divorce, separated, and single people, who meet monthly. I came away from that experience with friends and support. The blessings of St. Joan’s are that sometimes we need to be involved to help ourselves, and sometimes we are there to help others.”
| “My grandmother on my mother’s side, Gertrude Jerome, was widowed very early in her life. She bucked up, reared her kids ( three - my mom and her twin sister and their brother) and ran a successful beer (Grain Belt) and candy wholesale company in Devil’s Lake, ND. I never once considered her less of a person because she was alone, not part of a pair.” - Carol Berg O’Toole |
Sitting forty-seven stories up it’s interesting to talk about future and vision. On the subject of chairing the council she was honest and said, “I am not a trained theologian. We are not a traditional gathering of people. We have developed a unique variety of outreach ministries and I have volunteered for some of them myself. Many parishioners have their personal cause and I currently have mine. I am extremely concerned about the need to find affordable housing for people. I believe we can find funding within St Joan’s not only for our operational expenses but also for our chosen charities and ministries. We are not a traditional church, so the way in which we will find resources may not be traditional but creative. We may need to look at a more contemporary way of running a parish. Some parishes have responded to the shortage of priests and the need to give women a more prominent role by thinking in terms of a parish leader and a spiritual leader, two distinct roles. The partnering of both women and men’s voices in all aspects of ministry should be our goal. St. Joan of Arc will stay vibrant if we encourage others to be passionate about something within the community. Time and time again, I have learned in life that individuals young and old will come alive if you can ignite in them a passion for just one thing. At St. Joan of Arc we have a rainbow of ministries to be passionate about. Sometimes when I talk about what happens connected to the community of St. Joan’s - I get the same feeling I get when I run.....I can feel the wind in my lungs.”
Carol Berg O’Toole, like those countless prairie ancestors who preceded her seems to know how to be strong and how to lead and how to work with what is at hand. A couple of days later I thought about our conversation forty-seven floors above the city. I thought about Carol’s Lutheran grandmother, the Dakotas and St. Joan of Arc in today’s world. Then I remembered another woman from the Dakotas, Kathleen Norris and her reflections on the same things.
“I was drawn to the strong women in the congregation. Their well-worn Bibles said to me, “there is more here than you know,” and made me take more seriously the religion that had caused my grandmother Totten’s Bible to be so well used that its spine broke. I also began, slowly to make sense of our gathering together on Sunday morning, recognizing, however dimly, that church is to be participated in and not consumed. The point is not what one gets out of it, but the worship of God; the service takes place both because of and despite the needs, strengths, and frailties of the people present. How else could it be? Now on occasions when I am able to actually worship in church, I am deeply grateful.” - from Dakota, a Spiritual Geography by Kathleen Norris |
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Carol Berg O’Toole
was interviewed 7/17/10
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