Sister Rose Tillemans, founder of Peace House, dies at 79
by Nolan Zavoral
Star Tribune, 7/8/02

Harry Crevier walked past the makeshift memorial of a potted plant and
flowers Sunday night in the doorway of Peace House in Minneapolis. A piece of blue construction paper was filled with messages of mourning for Sister Rose Tillemans.

Tillemans, 79, who founded Peace House in 1985 as a place for people to find sanctuary from the temptations of the street, died Friday at Abbott
Northwestern Hospital. She had been hospitalized with severe headaches and then lapsed into a coma, friends said.

"Rose died?" Crevier, 40, asked, shaken with disbelief. "Oh, no. I just saw her Wednesday. We talked, and she asked how I was doing -- she never talked about herself, it was always about you, and how you were doing."

Crevier said he came to Peace House two years ago, a homeless person moving from shelter to shelter. He said Tillemans helped him find a job as a carpenter.

He gestured toward the upstairs of a yellow house across from Peace House. "I live there now," he said. "I'm not on the streets anymore."

Uncounted numbers of people with addictions, mental illnesses and other
problems have walked into the brick building next to a Dairy Queen.

Five days a week, Monday through Friday, they could talk and meditate -- pray, if they wished -- and eat lunch.

Tillemans, who belonged to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, did not try to convert anyone to Roman Catholicism, said Crevier and others who volunteered at Peace House, which is at 510 Franklin Av. E.

No fighting. Tillemans, who stood under 5 feet, did not abide fighting.

Sister Joanne Turgeon said, "If people were arguing, even burly men, she'd put a hand on their shoulder and say, 'Why are you fighting? This is Peace House. This is where people get along.'

"She'd lead them to the door, and they did leave."

In the words of the nuns who knew her best, Tillemans "spoke to power,"
whether in the church hierarchy or among politicians. In a poem, she wrote about a procession of ruling males, including priests, walking past women whose only involvement in the ceremony was cleaning the church floor.

But Tillemans loved a good laugh as well. A former homecoming queen and cheerleader, she would show up at Peace House, waving pompons and leading cheers for Minneota High School, her alma mater.

Tillemans lived simply in an apartment about a mile from Peace House. She took a bus back and forth. It was not uncommon for her to give spending money to those who asked.

She didn't question where the money went. "She'd say that they were asking sincerely for it, and what happened was between that person and God," Turgeon said.

A highlight of her tenure was when the late Minneapolis alderman Brian Coyle -- a former opponent of Peace House -- became a supporter.

Tillemans was born in Minneota, Minn., graduated from the College of St.
Catherine in 1945, and worked as a librarian before entering the novitiate, in 1947. She took her final vows in 1953.

She is survived by three brothers: Francis, of Minneapolis; Bernard, of
Minneota, and Lawrence, of St. Joseph.

Three visitations will be held on Wednesday, beginning at Bethany Convent, 1870 Randolph Av. in St. Paul, from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.; then at the Peace House, noon to 3 p.m., and then at St. Stephen Catholic Church, 2211 Clinton Av., Minneapolis, from 5 to 7 p.m. The funeral mass will begin at 7 p.m. at St. Stephen.

-- Nolan Zavoral is at nzavoral@startribune.com.

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