Cats and Computers were two of Sister Vincent Tehan’s favorite things.

Sister Vincent was a pioneer in computers. Her reputation for being a “computer wiz” was well known. A self-employed computer programmer, Sister Vincent set up computers for government offices in Kentucky as well as for SCN schools and institutions. In addition, she taught lay people how to use and program computers.

In a note from the late Sister Elizabeth Wendeln dated October 30, 1979, she proposed:

“That Sister Vincent serve as consultant for a limited time to me in my ministry as director of the rural office of religious education. At present, we have six hundred lay catechists in the twenty-six county area served by our team. I am asking the Sisters of Charity to support our efforts by permitting Sister Vincent to design a computer program for the catechists’ files in order to save our record keeping of permanent record files and give us the added ability to locate needs and respond more readily.”

In a note from LCWR written to President Barbara Thomas, SCN, in 1977:

“I’m writing to thank you on the part of the LCWR for the gift your SCN Congregation gave the Conference these past few months in the person of Sister Vincent. The hours and hours of painstaking computer work, the completed in-depth response that went to the IUSG early in September, plus the LCWR and CMSM copy that will accompany that of the American Bishops, could not have been done without Sister Vincent. We could not have given this kind of response without her expertise.”

Sister Vincent wrote:

“In May 1978, all computer work by the direction of the NLBI Board was being phased out, with Salt River Rural Electric being the last to go, when Hoffman Distributing Co. of Bardstown, Ky. bought a new mini computer and could get no one to program it.

IBM called me and asked if there was any possibility of my doing the programs for Hoffman. I met with Sister Barbara, and since I would need the availability of a computer to continue doing the community work, after the computer at Salt River was no longer available, it was decided that I could do the work for Hoffman by exchanging the computer for services, no money being involved. The services to consist of programming the computer for them and teaching their employees how to use it. For this service, they were to give me their computer at Nazareth for a minimum of six months, and they could use it for only two days a week; the rest of the time, I could use it for Community work. … This I began in May of 1978.”

Interestingly, her love of computers helped her fulfill a childhood dream.

“I got into computers a few years back,” Sister Vincent explained in an article published in 1985, “and for the first time I had an office all to myself. I had always wanted a purebred cat when I was a child, and when I saw a Siamese advertised in the newspaper, I thought, ‘Well, this is the perfect opportunity.’ So I went ahead and got it and kept it in my office. After three weeks, I told the mother superior that I had this little cat; and if it didn’t seem to bother anybody, could I keep it?

“She said, “Well, it’s not bothering anybody so far. I don’t see why not.”

Keeping a cat wasn’t exactly against the rules, it just hadn’t been done before.

According to the article, Sister Vincent’s first cat was called Pixie, a seal-point Siamese male. She got him without charge and without papers just in time for Christmas 1977. Positive that Pixie was a purebred, Sister Vincent decided to breed him, but she needed to find a mate for him first. Soon she located another Siamese, also a seal point, and also without papers. She hypothesized that if Pixie and his new friend produced nothing but Siamese kittens, it would demonstrate that both cats were purebreds – a logical supposition for someone who had taught science and mathematics for fifteen years before getting in on the ground floor of the computer boom in the mid-sixties.

A memo dated October 1981 describes the arrangements for “A Catterie”: “Sister may use the ground floor of the barn near the orchard as a cattery. The male cats will be housed in one room, the females in another. The center room will be used for storage for the cattery.”

“Food for the cats will be taken care of by Sister Vincent independently of food services (except for a daily bucket of leftovers normally destined for the pigs). Water for the needs of the cattery will be obtained from the pump by the garden and from the gym in winter or other times when hot water is needed.”

The memo states that this project expects to be self-supporting. Accomplished by selling computer packs and saving coupons for dry food. A Louisville carpet company donated scrap carpets for scratching posts. Sister Vincent herself, with a few helpers, completed much of the labor to prepare the cattery.

Pixie’s first litter proved Sister Vincent correct, as all the kittens were Siamese. She decided to keep a female, which she named Dixie, and cheerfully admitted that by then she had “gotten the bug”.

Sister Vincent’s new hobby eventually led to the birth of a longhaired Siamese – a female she named Princess, who was identified as a Balinese. “You’ll get a Balinese every once in a blue moon when you breed two Siamese together,” she explained.

Because her cats weren’t registered, she couldn’t enter them into any cat shows. However, she made the rounds, asking the judges what they thought of her. She said they told her she was a good cat and advised her to try to breed her.

With some experimenting with genetic changes, Sister Vincent was able to create a new breed of cat she called the Honeyese. By the careful combining of Siamese and Persian cats, she developed this new breed. Her male cat, “Honey Boy,” was named king of the household cat division at the Louisville Feline Fanciers’ show in 1986. (See the photo of Sister Vincent holding Honey Boy, who is proudly wearing his victory crown!)

As Sister Carolyn Wilson shared during Sister Vincent’s wake in 2007:

“I suspect that most of us think of Sister Vincent in terms of the two “Cs” – Cats and Computers.

We all know Vincent loved her cats, and they were her cats! They stayed pretty much in the cattery or close to it. If they should have gotten out, they responded to Vincent’s call. Vincent not only raised cats, she also bred them.

Vincent also loved the computer, or should I say, she loved computer programming. Vincent was a very intelligent woman. The programming was a real challenge to her, but she always met the challenge, and would figure out any glitches in the program. People who remember-remember the first computer Vincent had here on campus. It filled a whole room in O’Connell Hall. Of course, computers are much smaller now.

I first met Sister Vincent when I was working at SCN Center in the finance office. At that time we had a fairly large computer and were using an eight inch floppy disc. Things sure changed since then. Now the discs are smaller or there’s a CD disc drive and even a flash drive. Things changed in the finance office, too. When I started we did everything by hand; we had large ledger sheets and had to add long columns and do all the balancing by hand which took countless hours. That’s why we got Vincent to program our work and put it on the computer. It sure saved a lot of work.

During the welcome for Sister Vincent’s funeral, Sister Mary Wedding said, “Sister became a resident of Nazareth Home in December 2001, but only after she had enlisted the services of (SCN Associate) Trudi Maish, who made sure that the cats were provided for.

Let us remember Sister Vincent with affection and beg our loving God to receive her into eternal happiness. I feel sure St. Francis of Assisi welcomed her to Paradise.”