Sister Janet, 84, planning a ‘homecoming’ for Our Savior School — calling all ancestors

By Andy Furman
NKyTribune reporter

For 33 years she has served as Pastoral Administrator and Parish Life Collaborator at the small congregation at 246 East 10th Street, Covington. But Sister Janet Bucher, CDP – Sister of Divine Providence – says the story really starts back in 1943.

“That’s when Our Savior School opened,” Sister Janet, 84, told the Northern Kentucky Tribune the other afternoon, while sitting in her home, which butts-up against the tiny church. “Our Savior School was All-Black. Remember, this was segregation. We had more non-Catholics than Catholics attending.”

Yet, some 20 years later – 1963 to be exact – the little school closed.

“Integration,” Bucher says. “The students were now able to attend regular Public School, or a Catholic School.”

Sister Janet Bucker remained – and has seen the changes in her neighborhood.

This Sunday – October 20th – she will do what she does every third Sunday in October – create organize and spearhead the Homecoming for the little church.

“This was a vibrant community,” she remembers, “A center for not only education but recreation. This Sunday we hope to bring back some of the people who lived here, worked here and friends of Our Savior.”

The idea, she says, is to bring back former parishes.

And Sister Janet did the project alone – top-to-bottom. There was no committee; she did the newsletter, mailed it, and contacted as many as she could.

We will see her results, Sunday. But she adds: “I started the Homecoming 20-25 years ago.”

It begins with a 9:30 mass – this after a Drum Call – which, she says is a “symbol African people use to be together.”

There will be a Call for all ancestors to be with us, she adds, and, “We will name every person who lived here and who died in the last 30 years.”

The singing of Come Be with Us, in-between each called name is planned as well.

Then, it will be Every Sunday Pot Luck, for dinner.

Homecoming is not the only thing Sister Janet “runs.” She basically visits the sick in hospitals and nursing homes and in the community.
Her work has been recognized – at least by the City of Covington. After applying for an historical street marker, she says, she got the OK through letters of support and the marker should be unrelieved sometime in the spring.

“I walk the streets,” she said, “It’s important to keep my body moving and important to be visible in the community.”
She visits the local jail and conducts regular “Prayer Services” for the women who wish to attend.

“I find that these women in jail are very faith-filled,” she said. “Perhaps that is because they have time to think and pray in jail. They find God in jail – they lose him when they get out.”

Sister Janet Bucher was born and raised in Covington – on York Street. She attended St. Aloysius Elementary School and Our Lady of Providence Academy in Newport until she entered the convent at St. Anne’s in Melbourne, where she finished high school, entered the Novitiate, and made Religious Profession in 1958.

For 25 years the graduate of Villa Madonna and (then) Thomas More College taught Elementary school in Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, and Rhode Island – spending 16 of those years at Bishop Howard nongraded school in Covington.

“This is a transition period for the Black Catholic Community, a diverse community,” she says. “It pains me that some young Blacks don’t come to church.”

Why? “Many have grown, left for better jobs, and just couldn’t afford to live here after the projects were removed,” she said.

“I wanted to work with the poor and the needy,” she says. “I believe Providence has led me down this path. I love the people here, and I love this place. The Lord is working through me,”: she adds, “I’ve been a presence here – my goal was to be a hope.”

She says she was an “oddity” in the community in the ‘90s. “The neighborhood was a Black Community with the projects. “All my Black Elders have died and went to heaven; so, my goal was to be visible in the community.”

Times were different back then, she mulled. “Everyone helped raise everyone’s kids,” she said. “Not many kids in the neighborhood these days. The hospital, which created jobs and allowed people to walk to work – is gone.”

And she claims there is only about five Black churches still operating in and around East Covington. At one time, she believes, there was close to 10.

The one constant – at least on 246 East 10th Street – is Our Savior Church – and Sister Janet Bucher.

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