Inspiring stories about Catholic women
Behold Woman
Mother of Aerosmith Singer Steven Tyler’s Aborted Baby Now Pro-Life (lifenews.com)
Introductory note: On May 4, 2011 National Review Online published my article entitled “Post Abortion Trauma – Jesus What Have I Done” on Aerosmith front man and American Idol judge Steven Tyler’s abortion experience. Shortly after this I was contacted by Julia Holcomb. Julia is the mother of Steven’s Tyler’s aborted son referenced in my article.
Julia and her husband Joseph expressed a desire to entrust to me a more detailed account of Julia’s relationship with Steven Tyler, her abortion and post-abortion life journey. Julia has read for many years Steven’s Tyler’s recollection and reconstruction of events from the years of their relationship and more recently shared in his autobiography, Does the Noise in My Head Bother You? She would like the opportunity after all these years to present her version of the events.
But ultimately the reason Julia shares her story at this time is because of the inspiration, healing and faith that are reflected in her personal journey. Julia believes that my NRO article and the high visibility of Steven Tyler at this time provide a providential opportunity to present her story.
– Kevin Burke, LSW
Julia’s Story
My maiden name is Julia Holcomb and I am writing in response to Kevin Burke’s article Post Abortion Trauma from the National Review. I found the article he wrote about Steven Tyler remarkably compassionate while outlining the trauma of abortion. My name was mentioned in this article, as it has been in several other articles that have been written lately, and in several books. I decided it was time to tell my story honestly, to the best of my memory, hoping to bring closure and peace to this period of my life.
In November of 1973, shortly after my 16th birthday, I met Steven Tyler at a concert in Portland, Oregon. To understand what leads a 16-year-old girl to find herself backstage at an Aerosmith Rock Concert, and in a three- year live-in relationship with Steven Tyler, you need some essential background information.
QUIET REVOLUTION: NEW RESEARCH SPOTLIGHTS ROLE OF BLACK CATHOLIC NUNS IN DESEGREGATION by Barbara Bradley (Memphis Commercial Appeal)
Long before the civil rights movement broke racial barriers to public education, black Catholic sisters were quietly desegregating Catholic colleges, universities and normal schools. Through a variety of strategies, black teaching nuns won admittance, opening doors not only to higher education for African-Americans, but also helping turn Catholic elementary and secondary schools into havens of quality education for black children, especially in the South.
It’s a largely untold story. But now a Memphis native, in work that has caught the attention of prestigious historical societies and universities, is bringing it to light.
BARONESS MARIA VON TRAPP (1905-1987)
She considered herself an atheist. After graduating from high school Maria fled from her uncle’s home and went to live with a friend. She worked at a hotel to earn money and entered the State Teachers’ College for education on a scholarship that fall. Some of the Catholic students at the college went to Mass every day, and Maria ridiculed them as “the holy water girls.” She tried in every way she could to prove that life could be lived without God. Her love of music filled the spiritual void that was created in her soul.
On Palm Sunday 1924, she was passing a church and entered, thinking that there would be a performance of “St. Matthew’s Passion” by Bach. She was wrong. The crowd had gathered for a Lenten lecture on the crucifixion by a famous Jesuit priest.
“Now I had heard from my uncle that all of these Bible stories were inventions and
old legends,” she said, “and that there wasn’t a word of truth in them. But the way this man talked just swept me off my feet. I was completely overwhelmed by it, and I worked my way through the crowd to the pulpit.”
When she reached the priest, she blurted out, “Do you believe all this?”
THE WOMAN WHO LOVES CHEESE
A CONNECTICUT nun’s scholarly commitment to cheese has taken her from a cloistered life of contemplation, farm chores and Gregorian chants to a Fulbright scholarship, France and fame.
When Mother Noella Marcellino first focused a microscope more than a decade ago on cheese she had made by hand at the Benedictine abbey in Bethlehem, she had no idea she would become the celebrated champion of France’s famous raw-milk cheeses, the centuries-old ways they are made, and the tiny microorganisms that help flavor them.
Along the way, this 52-year-old former college dropout also has won a prestigious Fulbright scholarship, earned a University of Connecticut doctorate in microbiology, and achieved near rock-star status among cheesemakers and cheese-lovers, both here and abroad.
.- The Little Sisters of the Abandoned Elderly in Chissano (Mozambique) took into their home this week a 25 year-old African young girl named Olivia, who despite not being baptized at the time and not having any legs, crawled 2.5 miles every Sunday to attend Mass.
According to the AVAN news agency, the nuns said that one day, they saw “something moving on the ground far away,” and when they drew near they saw, “to our surprise, that it was a young woman.”
“We were able to talk to her through a lady who was walking by and who translated into Portuguese what she was saying to us” in her dialect, they said.
The sisters said that although “the sand from the road burned the palms of her hands during the hottest times of the year,” the young woman crawled to Mass, “giving witness of perseverance and heroic faith.”
The young woman received baptismal preparation from a catechist, who periodically visited her at home. After she was recently baptized, one of the benefactors of the sisters donated a wheel chair for Olivia.
One of the leading sculptors of her time, Lewis was also the first African-American artist to achieve international fame. In 1866, a reporter in Rome wrote:
An interesting novelty has sprung up among us, in the city where all our surroundings are of the olden time. Miss Edmonia Lewis, a lady of color, has taken a studio here, and works as a sculptress in one of the rooms formerly occupied by the great master Canova. She is the only lady of her race in the United States who has thus applied herself to the study and practice of sculptural art.
She was born about 1845 in upstate New York to a Haitian father and Chippewa mother. Orphaned at ten, she lived with her Chippewa relatives. She discovered her artistic vocation during a childhood trip to Boston, a city famous for its statues. “She went home,” the reporter wrote, “to a life purpose that rendered her ears deaf to the taunts of her schoolmates and the cuffs of the village schoolmaster.”
Shane Claiborne in The Irresistible Revolution:
People often ask me what Mother Teresa was like. Sometimes it’s like they wonder if she glowed in the dark or had a halo. She was short, wrinkled, and precious, maybe even a little ornery, like a beautiful, wise old granny. But there is one thing I will never forget—her feet.
From Why I am Catholic
I woke up on the late side this morning and so I decided to grab my breakfast in the high school cafeteria during first period. As I waited my turn, an older woman slowly walked back and forth behind the counter, serving hungry teenagers, answering their questions, pouring their coffee. She was woefully outnumbered and it was clear the cafeteria was understaffed.
Finally, my turn came, just as two more cafeteria workers joined her behind the counter. As she prepared my eggs and sausage, I noticed a medallion pinned to her bright blue apron. When I asked her, she told me it was St. Gerard. “Is he your patron saint?” “Yes,” she said. “That is beautiful,” I told her.
