Wake Up with Purpose!: What I've Learned in my First Hundred Years

by Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, Seth Davis, Devon O'Day (Read by)

Overview

Known to millions as simply "Sister Jean," the Loyola Chicago matriarch gives readers a remarkable memoir filled with history, wonder, and common-sense wisdom for this century and beyond.

"I've seen so many changes in the last 102 years, but the important things remain the same."

Part memoir, part philosophy text, and part spiritual guide, Sister Jean's wit, wisdom, and common sense seems to appeal to the broadest possible audience—religious and non-religious, old and young, male and female, sports fan and non-sports fan. Along with her collaborator Seth Davis, an award-winning writer, broadcaster and New York Times best-selling author, the book captures not just Sister Jean's words but also her spirit, as well as her sharp sense of humor. The reader feels just as the students at Loyola do when they knock on her office door, plop down in a chair, and ask if she would have time to chat, an activity that she still does daily at the age of 102.

The driving force inside Wake Up with Purpose! is the narrative of Sister Jean's fascinating life. She dips into her prodigious memory bank and draws the reader in as she retraces her path from a young girl growing up in the Bay Area of California (where her father kept a pet monkey and family ark beached on the shore and where she walked with her mother across the Golden Gate Bridge on the day it opened) to her studies to become a Sister at the BVM Mother House in Iowa to her long tenure as an elementary school teacher in Chicago and Los Angeles to her decades on university faculty at Mundelein College and Loyola University to, finally, her unexpected turn as a centenarian celebrity with multiple bobblehead dolls crafted in her image. Alongside those detailed recollections, Sister Jean lays out the life lessons she gleaned and expounds on broad, universal themes that tie everything together, providing priceless wisdom from a woman who's become a national treasure.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798212685702
Publisher:	HarperCollins Christian
Publication date:	02/01/2023
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 5.70(h) x (d)

About the Author

Seth Davis is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Wooden: A Coach’s Life and When March Went Mad: The Game That Transformed Basketball. He is an on-air studio analyst for CBS Sports and CBS Sports Network during coverage of college basketball and the NCAA tournament, and he is also the managing editor of The Fieldhouse, a national college basketball platform at The Athletic. Before joining The Athletic, Davis spent twenty-two years covering college basketball for Sports Illustrated. A graduate of Duke University, he lives with his family in Los Angeles.

Devon O’Day, a radio personality, former plus-size model, songwriter, and author, studied voice-over and commercial acting at the Weist-Barron School in New York City and is the voice of choice to narrate specials for such artists as Garth Brooks, the Dixie Chicks, Kenny Chesney, and others.

Editorial Reviews

The amount of history the memoir encompasses is staggering, from the dropping of the atomic bomb to Black Lives Matter protests….Secrets to a long life well-lived [are] easy and applicable to anyone.”

America magazine

Sister Jean is a national treasure…How wonderful that she has given that gig to all of us by telling the story of her wonderful life.”

CBS Sports