08/27/2026
Born in Pittsburgh in 1910, Vera Duss spent most of her childhood in France. In 1936 she obtained a medical degree from the Sorbonne in Paris. Immediately upon graduation, Vera entered a Benedictine abbey near Paris and was given the name Sister Benedict.
When France fell to the N***s in 1940, the abbey was seized as quarters for German officers and Sister Benedict went into hiding. She spent the next few years evading the Gestapo. When she received word that the Germans had evacuated the abbey, Sister Benedict returned but remained in hiding.
A few days later, on August 27, 1944, word spread through the village that an army was arriving. Sister Benedict climbed to the top of the abbey’s medieval tower and from there saw a thrilling sight—a column of troops entering the village, being led by vehicles flying American flags. Sister Benedict felt a powerful surge of gratitude for the “lifting of oppression” and for the self-sacrifice of the American soldiers, and a deep sense of calling to respond. As she reflected on her feelings over the next few months, Sister Benedict resolved to travel to America and found an abbey there.
She moved to America in 1946 and, overcoming many challenges and obstacles, in 1947 she founded the Regina Laudis monastic community in Bethlehem, Connecticut. The community became an abbey in 1975, and Sister Benedict became Mother Benedict. She died at the abbey in 2005, at age 94.
In the early 1970s a freshman at Bennington College in Vermont came to the abbey seeking guidance, troubled by the Vietnam War and her father’s role in it. She shared her concerns with Mother Benedict. In response, Mother Benedict told her the story of the liberation of her abbey in France and her call to respond to the “lifting of oppression” she had experienced. To the young woman’s surprise, the commanding general of the army that liberated Mother Benedict’s abbey and village was her grandfather, George S. Patton. Margaret Georgina Patton came to peace with the history of her family, and with her father, Colonel (and future major general) George S. Patton IV. She returned to school, eventually transferring to Dartmouth College, where she graduated in 1976. She entered the Regina Laudis monastery in 1982. Mother Margaret Georgina is now 82 years old.
Mother Margaret Georgina’s father served three tours in Vietnam, one as commander of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, earning two Distinguished Service Crosses and a Purple Heart. He went on to command the Second Armored Division at Fort Hood, Texas. After his death in June 2004 at age 80, General Patton was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, in a simple pine coffin made by the sisters at Regina Laudis, from trees grown on the property.
Upper left: Mother Benedict. Lower left: Mother Margaret Georgina.
