Death of former Deputy Principal Sr Val Grimson op

Sr Valerie Grimson op passed away in Concord, Sydney, NSW on 18 March 2022 aged 97 years.

Sr Val was a much-loved Dominican Sister for 80 years, teaching in primary, secondary and tertiary education as well as with vision impaired children.

She was Deputy Principal at Dominic College 1976-1978 in charge of the Senior School at Bowden Street, now Guilford Young College.

Writing about her first impressions when she arrived at Dominic in 1976 Sr Val (who was very short and had taught mainly girls previously) recalled:

'On my first day at Dominic I felt like Gulliver among the giants - so many boys, so tall, so big, and I so short! The problem was solved by my mounting a platform to address the multitude! It took me about a week to "hear" what the boys were saying. Compared to the soft high female voices, to which my ears were attuned, the male voices seemed low and deep, the words indistinct.'

She reflected at the end of her first year:

'The College is absorbing what is most appropriate of the Salesian and Dominican traditions and is the richer for both. It is a friendly, happy community, where students play hard, work hard (some of the time) and enjoy the companionship of their peers and the friendship of their teachers.'

We know this is still the case 45 years later. RIP Sr Valerie Grimson op.