Sister Marlene Fritz, 70 Years

After 70 years as a member of her order, Mercy Sister Marlene Fritz is grateful for the multitude of exciting experiences she has had as a religious. “I think I wouldn’t have met the people that I met, and done the things that I did, if I weren’t a religious,” she said in a recent phone interview.
 

Sister Marlene grew up in Sayreville with one sister and credits the roots of her vocation to her devoted Catholic parents, who taught her the importance of attending Mass and encouraged her to pray the rosary. She attended Our Lady of Victories School, Sayreville, where she admired the Sisters of Mercy who were her teachers.
 

“I liked it very much,” she recalled. “As of the first day, I decided I was going to be a Sister.” She graduated from the now-closed St. Mary High School, South Amboy, where religious sisters were again her instructors.
 

The idea of a religious vocation “was always with me,” she said. “I was probably the one who brought it up first,” rather than any of the Sisters suggesting it. Her family was not surprised when she told them her plans.
 

After entering formation, she attended Georgian Court College (now University), Lakewood, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in German studies. A lifelong lover of the German language and culture, Sister Marlene was thrilled to be permitted by her religious superiors to travel to Germany. She received a Fulbright summer scholarship and lived in Munich, Ansbach, and Osnabruck.

Upon her return to the United States, she attended Middlebury German School in Vermont, where she earned a master’s degree after graduating from its rigorous German immersion program. Sister Marlene’s mother was a German immigrant to the United States, but because her father was not fluent in German and because it was wartime and anti-German prejudice was high, the family did not speak German at home.
 

Sister Marlene was thrilled to be sent back to Germany, where she had a position as an English teacher at an all-boys school in Dortmund for one year. The boys were “lively,” and tried pranking her on April 1 by hiding behind their desks with all the lights out. Sister Marlene was prepared, however, and returned the humor by requiring them to translate Latin sentences for several minutes after turning the lights back on.

“They had no idea I could do that,” she recalled, laughing. Teaching at the all-boys school “was challenging, but I enjoyed it,” she said. “The school system is entirely different, and that was a good experience for me.”
 

Her experience teaching abroad would later influence her style and methods as a school administrator, she said. Sister Marlene took courses in school administration at the University of Texas, and taught German at an all-girls school while living in San Antonio. Moving to new locations was “challenging and interesting,” she said.

Upon her return to New Jersey, Sister Marlene served as assistant directress at Mount Saint Mary Academy, Watchung; and assistant principal at Marylawn of the Oranges Academy, South Orange. She recalled how much she enjoyed being able to interact with the entire student body instead of only one class of students as an administrator, but admitted: “I think I maybe enjoyed being a teacher a little smidgen more.”
 

Following her career in education, Sister Marlene served as associate director for the New Jersey Office of Development of the Mid-Atlantic Community of the Sisters of Mercy. She also volunteered on Saturdays for the Somerset County Library system as a teacher of German for adults.
 

Retired for about three years, Sister Marlene enjoys completing sudoku puzzles in her free time. Reflecting on her 70 years as a Sister of Mercy she said, “I’ve had a fulfilling life, with many travels.”