Category: Biography

They promised her heaven, but there was no savior.

Imagine an eighteen-year-old American girl who has never read a newspaper, watched television, or made a phone call and never danced, and this in the 1960s.

In Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Leonard Feeney, a controversial  Catholic priest, has founded a religious community called the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The Center’s members many of them are educated at Harvard and Radcliffe.  They surrender all earthly possessions and aspects of their life, including their children, to him. Patricia Chadwick was one of those children, and Little Sister is her account of growing up in the Feeney sect.

She has no parental support to start with.  And she cannot even speak to them—Patricia bristles against the community’s draconian rules, yearning for another life. And at seventeen, her parents banish her from the Center, her home.  She faces the world alone, without skills, family, or money. But she powers herself with faith and a fierce determination to succeed on her own. And she does, rising eventually to the upper echelons of the world of finance and investing.

A tale of resilience and grace, Little Sister chronicles, in riveting prose, a surreal childhood and does so without rancor or self-pity.

About the Author:

Patricia Walsh Chadwick’s unorthodox upbringing in an excommunicated Catholic commune is the subject of her first book, a memoir entitled LITTLE SISTER. From her infancy in 1948, when she was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Together with the 38 other children born within the community, she was being raised to dedicate their lives to God, rejecting family, marriage, or children of their own. As she matured into her mid-teen years and experienced several innocent crushes on the men within the community, she was deemed unfit, and at the age of 17, she was banished from her home. And for the first time, she faced the world, devoid of family, money, advice, or the opportunity to attend college.

Patricia began the long trek of her career, starting as a receptionist in a brokerage and investment banking firm and later earned a degree in Economics.

Moving to New York in 1975, she capitalized on the opportunities in the financial world. Eventually, she became a Global Partner at Invesco. In the meantime, she developed a passion for opera, theater, and global travel.

In 2016, Patricia co-founded and was the CEO of Anchor Health Initiative, which provides primary care to the LGBTQ community in Connecticut.
She lives in Connecticut with her husband. They have a daughter in graduate school and a son who works in Manhattan.

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