Dear Editor: Msgr. Martin Geraghty wrote a nice article on the book by Eileen Markey about the life and death of Sister Maura Clarke, M.M. With his connections to the Rockaways and St. Francis de Sales parish, Msgr. Geraghty is the perfect person to review it.

I can vouch for the scholarly work that lies behind the book. Ms. Markey visited the Diocesan Archive while she was researching Maura Clarke’s life to learn information about the history of St. Camillus and St. Francis de Sales parish and school, and about Catholic life in the Brooklyn Diocese at that time. It was a pleasure to meet her and help her.

Sister Maura Clarke is not the only one of the four women with a connection to the Brooklyn Diocese. Sister Ita Ford was a relative of Bishop Francis X. Ford, M.M., who was also born in Brooklyn and who died in 1952 while a prisoner in Communist China.

It is a pleasure to see the fruit of that work and to wish her success with her new book.

JOSEPH COEN

Park Slope

Editor’s Note: Joseph Coen is the Archivist for the Diocese of Brooklyn.