Our community fondly remembers Sr Noni Mitchell, one of our beloved IBVM sisters, who passed away on 28 April 2021 at the age of 93.

Born in Belmont, NSW on 12 October 1928, Sr Noni entered the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary on 13 June 1954. She assumed the religious name of John Bosco, by which many ex-students of Loreto Normanhurst will remember her.

Sr Noni was a Doctor of Medicine who made a considerable impact on education across Australia. A long-serving Provincial Leader of Loreto Australia, Sr Noni was also General Superior of the IBVM for two terms in Rome.

She is perhaps best remembered to our community as a teacher of many subjects, teaching at Loreto Normanhurst during the 1960s and then at both Normanhurst and Kirribilli, where she eventually served as Principal. 

Sr Noni was later the first Principal of Christ College, the first Catholic teaching college in Melbourne, and an editor of multiple Biology and Religious Education publications and textbooks which transformed the teaching of these subjects at the time. 

Alumna Catherine Gray (’72) shared that her father and Sr Noni had studied Medicine together at Sydney University, and remained connected particularly when Catherine and her siblings attended Normanhurst and her father sat on its committees. Both Sr Noni and Dr Kenneth R Gray feature in the photo below.

She was a warm, gracious and eloquent person and will be remembered fondly by my family and all those who were fortunate enough to know her. She has left a lasting legacy in so many areas.

Patsy Shannon (’69) also remembers Sr Noni for being a qualified doctor, which was “most unusual for a nun in those times.”

When we were little boarders trying to get out of school and pretending we were sick, she soon sorted out that we were malingering! But then she would be so kind to try and find out why we wanted to ‘wag’ going to classes. She taught Science and Maths and was such a gentle woman.

We wish our most sincere sympathies to Sr Noni Mitchell’s family and friends, and all those in our Loreto network whose lives she touched with her gentle intelligence and spirit.