Sister Theresa was born in Green Bay, WI into a happy Italian-American family and is the youngest of six children. She has four older brothers and one sister. From the time she was 12, she knew her calling was to become a nun. Fourteen years ago, at age of 18, she entered her candidacy with the Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart to begin the lengthily process leading to her perpetual vows. Her chosen vocation within the order was education.  Three years ago, she took a position teaching first grade students Our Lady of Angels School and went to live with in the convent there. She settled well into the tight knit and loving community of Sisters, who lived and worked under the guidance of Father Frank Vasquez. Life was good and she was content and happy.

Sister Theresa was in the middle of helping the children paint the paper mache masks they had been working on when the first news of the outbreak came to Our Lady of Angels, her hands were covered with splotches of red paint and she had accidently touched her itchy nose leaving it streaked with paint. The children were a delightful mess and their chatter and laughter filled the room when Sister Agatha came in and told her that the children needed to be immediately taken to safety to await their parents. Before, Sister Agatha’s words could truly register her attention was drawn to movement outside the classroom window and the shouting of the janitor who ran with mop held up like a weapon before him. It was then she saw the dead moving toward the school. It is a moment of her life that will be etched in her memory for all time.

The outbreak spread in waves like wildfire across dry grassy fields of grain, leaving nothing but the shattered and broken remnants of humanity and hordes of the walking dead in its wake. In the first days, the Sisters and Father Frank tried to tend to the sick, but soon knew there was nothing to be done, but flee from the city.   In those first days and weeks, she saw the world turn inside out. Everyone, she knew, except Father Frank, died and rose again as the walking dead. Somehow, they had held on and with Father Vasquez’s protection she came to Arklay in hope of find a place that would offer some safety and an opportunity to serve.

Sister Theresa is a deeply spiritual person and even in the long dark night that has descended upon the world she holds on to her simple enduring faith, combating darkness with the light of hope, love and charity.