No Ordinary Life: The Biography of Elizabeth J. McCormack

by Charles Kenney

Kenney, Charles

272 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2012

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

5 stars for the subject. Zero stars for the writing.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book about a remarkable woman whom I was fortunate to know a little.

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

The biography of a wise and self-disciplined woman born into a Roman Catholic universe in the suburbs of New York City in 1922. Joining the Sacred Heart community of nuns at twenty-three, Elizabeth McCormack rose within the order and became president of Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart in 1966 at the age of forty-four, during a period of unrest and change in the academic world. Becoming increasingly liberal in her thinking, she began to question Catholic women’s education, finding it less enriching than a catholic education, and also began to question the acumen of the Catholic bureaucracy and her own faith. Leaving the college and her order in 1974, she married two years later.

Elizabeth became an active force in the philanthropic world from a new career starting point as philanthropic adviser to the third generation of descendants of the first John D. Rockefeller, known as “the cousins.” While continuing to work for the Rockefeller family and later, she served on foundation, corporate, and non-profit boards, where she was widely appreciated for her insightful thinking and straight talk.

As an example of how far she traveled from her Catholic roots, I was particularly taken with her answer to an interviewer's question as to how she envisioned heaven. Her response: “500 billion people all milling around somewhere?”

An excellent read.