Sr Elizabeth Jane McCoy
Birth 31 AUG 1941
Death 29 Mar 2004
Abington, Montgomery, Pennsylvania, USA
Burial Holy Sepulchre Cemetery
Cheltenham, Pennsylvania, USA
Memorial ID 104423695
By Sally A. Downey, Inquirer Staff Writer
The Philadelphia Inquirer; Thursday, April 1, 2004, Section B Page 11:
"Sister Elizabeth J. McCoy, 62, the director of Ancillae-Assumpta Academy in Wyncote who taught responsibility to even her youngest charges, died of complications from a cerebral haemorrhage Monday at Abington Memorial Hospital.
Sister Elizabeth was director and had previously been principal of the private coeducational Catholic elementary school operated by the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
In 1989 when she was appointed director, she told a reporter that though it was a challenge, even very young children could be taught about social and economic justice and the global community.
"She believed that our lives were not complete unless we touched others," said Sister Kathleen Helbig, the school's assistant director.
Sister Elizabeth and some of the students volunteered to feed the homeless on Saturday nights in Center City.
The bonding of the young and old volunteers from the suburbs with the homeless, Sister Elizabeth once said, "is where solutions to the human problems of the cities are to be found." In 1986, the Rev. Jesse Jackson spoke to Ancillae students about his Rainbow Coalition after she invited him to land his helicopter on the school ball field. When Ancillae-Assumpta won a national Drug Free School Recognition Award, she said her students were taught skills to cope with life and to become problem-solvers.
Sister Elizabeth grew up in the city's Germantown section. She was orphaned at 8 and raised by older siblings. After graduating from the order's Ancilla Domini Academy in Germantown in 1959, she entered the convent of the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Haverford.
She taught sixth graders in a parochial school in Baltimore before becoming principal of Ancillae Academy for Girls in Wyncote in 1968 when she was 27. Sister Elizabeth earned a bachelor's degree from Cabrini College, a master's degree from Villanova University, and a doctorate in administration and curriculum from Boston College. She is survived by a brother, William; and 13 nieces and nephews.
Elizabeth J "Betty Jane" McCoy |