The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Cokie Roberts’ report card
Cokie Roberts stood before the Convent of the Sacred Heart Class of 1993 and shared a life lesson from her mother: The right side of the report card is more important than the left.
Her mother ignored her A’s for academics and admonished her for getting C’s and D’s for how she treated peers and responded to authority.
“It’s not as important to get an ‘A’ in Latin as it is in conduct because that is what you have to take with you when you leave here, and use as an underpinning for the rest of your life,” Roberts, who attended other Sacred Heart schools, told the 26 graduates that day.
Right up until her death at her Bethesda, Md., home Tuesday at age 75, the journalism pioneer worked on acing the right side of her report card.
That day in Greenwich, she was pinchhitting for no less than Mother Teresa. Though Mother Teresa committed several months in advance, Sacred Heart Headmistress Sr. Joan Magnetti was warned by a nun coordinating the visit that it might be wise to have an understudy.
“‘You have to understand about Mother. She’s agreed to be your commencement speaker, but if she gets up in the morning and the Holy Spirit tells her to go to Rome to see the pope, she’ll go,’ ” Magnetti recalled Thursday.
I’m almost sure that’s the first time I’ve ever heard a nun impersonate another nun.
Asking someone to be on standby is awkward under any circumstances. So Magnetti contacted Roberts. Despite a hectic schedule as a political commentator for ABC News, she replied, “consider it done.”
A few weeks before the commencement ceremony, Mother Teresa tripped in Rome and broke three ribs. Roberts got called to the stage.
“Cokie was so cute. She arrived at graduation and all the kids were on the lawn, she had this gorgeous outfit on and this big bright hat,” Magnetti said. She summoned another impersonation, this one of Roberts announcing, “Clearly, I am not Mother Teresa.”
They had met a few years earlier in the hospital where Roberts’ sister, Barbara, was undergoing chemotherapy while serving as mayor of Princeton. Magnetti was headmistress of Stuart Country Day School of the Sacred Heart in Princeton at the time.
Barbara called Magnetti one day and asked her to help plan her funeral.
“You’re going to give my eulogy, my homily,” she told her.
Barbara died at 51 in 1990. In the intervening years, Magnetti and Roberts became close.
“I’ve known Cokie a long time,” Magnetti said. “I loved her a long time.”
Roberts routinely accepted invitations to participate in fundraisers, book signings and video conferences for the Greenwich school, and continued to do so when Magnetti took on the role in 2009 of executive director for Catholic schools in Bridgeport. She recently retired as head of the Catholic Academy of Bridgeport, which serves more than 925 children at St. Andrew, St. Ann, St. Augustine and St. Raphael.
Magnetti said she and Roberts bonded while the journalist battled breast cancer in 2002. Magnetti had a lumpectomy herself, which she says “was nothing” in comparison.
“She was so vigilant and so supportive,” Magnetti said.
Roberts remained a proud supporter of the Sacred Heart tradition. While her son’s family was living in Greenwich for a few years, they hoped to send their daughters to Convent of the Sacred Heart.
“(Cokie) was speaking in St. Louis and said, ‘I want to thank Sister Joan Magnetti for putting my granddaughter at top of the wait list.’ ”
“And it was true.” Magnetti said, laughing. “Those were days schools had long wait lists. And I thought, ‘I can’t tell Cokie her granddaughter can’t come here.’ ”
As we chatted on the phone, Magnetti was making plans to leave her Bedford, N.Y., home at dawn catch a flight to attend Roberts’ funeral.
“When I write somebody and say, ‘I’m going to Cokie’s funeral’ I start to cry.”
Like many others, Magnetti pointed to Roberts’ ability to be outspoken, but fair. It’s another trait she likely gleaned from her mother, Lindy Boggs, a onetime U.S. representative who was once appointed by President Bill Clinton as the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.
“She always used to say, ‘Imagine representing Clinton to the pope.’ ”
The current president in recent days responded to the news of Roberts’ death by immediately talking about himself, saying, “I never met her. She never treated me nicely.”
That would be an “F” on the right side of life’s report card.