Local College Students Connect to, Struggle with the Legacy of Jean Donovan
Donovan, a graduate of UMW, was killed in El Salvador in 1980. This summer, students traveled with the St. Vincent de Paul Society to visit the site.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Email Martin
El Salvador and the University of Mary Washington were connected by tragedy in 1980, when Jean Donovan — a graduate of the then-Mary Washington College — was martyred along with three others while serving those in need in a country torn by civil war.
This summer, Fr. Rich Miserendino took a group of UMW students back to El Salvador on the 50th anniversary of Donovan’s graduation from what is now the University of Mary Washington.
El Salvador, Miserendino told the Advance, is a country “where most everyone has PTSD because of the civil war and the gang violence. But there are signs of hope.” Notably, gang violence is down.
He worked with Commissioned by Christ, which handles the logistics for short-term mission trips. “Before we send a group down, the sites are tested by experienced missionaries for a couple years,” Miserendino said. “They find out, do the people want us there? Is there work to do there?”
The group worked with the St. Vincent De Paul Society, staying in a convent where there were about 50-60 nuns. The convent was attached to a church. “We were probably the 10th mission group that had been there,” he said.
While serving the poor drove their work, Donovan was very much in the minds of Fr. Miserendino and the students who made the trip.
Surreal Experience
The site of Donovan’s execution is not one seen by many Americans. It’s “off the beaten path,” Miserendino said. But as UMW students, it was important to visit.
To reach the site, the group had to squeeze in a person’s car and be driven there. “We were probably one of only 100 Americans who have laid eyes on that site,” he said.
Janie Whatley and Amy Crisp were two of the students on the journey.
Crisp said she found the visit to the site of Donovan’s execution “very touching, and in your face.” Having a connection with Donovan through the university had Crisp, a sophomore, “trying to put myself in her shoes.”
For Whatley, a junior, it was a “surreal experience.”
“We had heard about her, and there is a plaque on campus,” she told the Advance. “But it was a very different experience to be in the country where she was serving. It was very impactful to be in the place where she was likely killed. Heavy, but in a good way. It made you think about your priorities.” And it made you understand that the “faith perspective is important.”
That surreal experience went beyond the visit to Donovan’s execution site, however.
Poverty and Joy
The level of poverty that people face in El Salvador also had a deep impact on the students.
“It’s sad and disheartening to see the poverty,” said Whatley. She points to the time she spent in at a local nursing home in El Salvador. She recounted talking to people who were 20 years old and realizing that “this was their life. They went straight to work.”
The nursing home facility by American standards was run down, Whatley said, but for the 20-year-olds she was meeting with, “this was the dream.”
It left her asking, “How do I change the way I live my life after seeing this?”
Crisp was also struck by the poverty, but equally that the people in El Salvador “were so joyful.”
She told the Advance when she was younger her family had to move from the townhouse they were living in to a two-bedroom apartment. “When that happened, I complained a lot because I was living with three people,” she said.
However, “compared with El Salvador, that’s luxury. We had four walls with air conditioners. Many of the houses [we saw in El Salvador] were without four walls.”
Whatley was also “touched by their strong community.” People there “know each other and help each other out,” she said.
While visiting, the group took part in a special mass for Divine Providence Sunday.
“After mass we had dancing and food,” Whatley said. “We all pitched in to get the musicians and get the food — everybody had a part in making that work.”
Halfway through the mass, however, a downpour came and everything had to stop for about 20 minutes.
“During that time,” Whatley recalled, “people were moving food to cover – people just rolled with it and didn’t allow it to ruin their day.”
“These were joyful people,” Crisp said. “We have an attitude of consumerism [in the U.S.], and that things make us happy. “[The Salvadorians] don’t have anything to keep buying, so they have to put their faith in something that is better than the latest iPhone.”
After the Trip
The impact of the journey did not end when the students returned to American soil.
“We have a group chat from the El Salvador experience which keeps the students connected,” Miserendino said. “The group kind of sticks together.”
Next year the plan is to take students to Peru.
“It’s not about evangelizing,” Miserendino said. “It’s an expression of the care of Christ for the people, and a sign of solidarity with those who are in need.”
For Additional Information
The Murdered Churchwomen in El Salvador | Origins - A look at the civil war in El Salvador, and the murder of Jean Donovan and three nuns.
Local Obituaries
To view local obituaries or to send a note to family and loved ones, please visit the link that follows.
Support Award-winning, Locally Focused Journalism
The FXBG Advance cuts through the talking points to deliver both incisive and informative news about the issues, people, and organizations that daily affect your life. And we do it in a multi-partisan format that has no equal in this region. Over the past year, our reporting was:
First to break the story of Stafford Board of Supervisors dismissing a citizen library board member for “misconduct,” without informing the citizen or explaining what the person allegedly did wrong.
First to explain falling water levels in the Rappahannock Canal.
First to detail controversial traffic numbers submitted by Stafford staff on the Buc-ee’s project
Our media group also offers the most-extensive election coverage in the region and regular columnists like:
And our newsroom is led by the most-experienced and most-awarded journalists in the region — Adele Uphaus (Managing Editor and multiple VPA award-winner) and Martin Davis (Editor-in-Chief, 2022 Opinion Writer of the Year in Virginia and more than 25 years reporting from around the country and the world).
For just $8 a month, you can help support top-flight journalism that puts people over policies.
Your contributions 100% support our journalists.
Help us as we continue to grow!
This article is published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. It can be distributed for noncommercial purposes and must include the following: “Published with permission by FXBG Advance.”