The Dominican Art of Providence - St. Mary's Dominican High School

Art can inspire, enlighten, and educate. This is the story of how one work of art did that and more. A painting of stunning golden sunflowers against an Azure Blue sky returned home 60 years after artist Cornelia “Dee” Fuller Cichon finished the work. Dee passed last July. She was the beloved wife of Richard Cichon Sr. and mother of Richard Jr. and John Cichon. Born in St. James, Louisiana, Dee grew up in New Orleans, excelled in education, but was always drawn to art – oil painting, drawing, sculpture, pottery, and creating woven tapestries. She also played guitar and loved singing.

“Dee never signed her art, with the exception of one painting,” recounted Richard. “It was a painting that Dee gave to the mother of her friend Harriet Bellone who insisted that Dee sign the art.” Harriet was one year ahead of Dee at St. Mary’s Dominican High School. After 50 years of teaching, she resides in Waveland, Mississippi.

Dee, a 1961 graduate of St. Mary’s Dominican High School, earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts and Education from St. Mary’s Dominican College. When she became a Dominican Sister, she took the name of Sr. Dismas from St. Dismas, the Good Thief. After nine years as a Dominican Sister and having taught middle school in Louisiana, she left the order. She and Richard, a former religious brother, met while teaching summer catechism in Mississippi. Three years later, in 1971, they married and after living in New Orleans for a year they moved to Chicago. In 1976 they returned to the Mississippi Gulf Coast where Dee taught at Our Lady Academy for four years and at St. Stanislaus College for the next 14 years. She taught art, French, biology, religion, was a certified English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher; teaching in China for five summers and tutoring ELS students in the United States. For 25 years Dee and Richard sang in the choir at the St. Augustine Seminary – Society of the Divine Word in Bay St. Louis.

August 29, 2005, was a life-changing moment for Dee and Richard. They, and a friend who was visiting from China, had plans to ride out Hurricane Katrina at the Cichon’s home in Bay St. Louis on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. As Katrina entered the Gulf of Mexico it rapidly intensified to a Category 5 hurricane. It would be one of the deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history.

As the Katrina’s storm surge rose to 30 feet, water was rapidly rising around the Cichon home. “We got to the second floor and raised one of the windows. It gave the three of us access to the porch roof. I was holding Dee’s hand tight and pulled her through the raging water. At 9 a.m. the three of us managed to get to the pine tree that was close to our house. For three hours, in 125 miles an hour winds, we had clung to that tree. A tornado snapped off the tree’s top,” Richard recalled. “Thankfully,that stabilized the tree and stopped it from swaying. After the hurricane passed we were left with only the wet clothes on our back, driver’s licenses, passports, and other personal identifications that Dee wisely put in a zip lock bag in her purse before the water rose. My wife never left the house without her purse. Now there was no house, no cars. Everything we owned was gone. Bay St. Louis was wiped away, but by the grace of God we were alive and unharmed.”

That evening around 7 pm, after enduring 10 hours out in the storm, they were able to get aboat from a neighbor’s yard. It was twilight. They found boards floating in the water and used them to row their way to higher ground. They took refuge at St. Augustine Seminary. Thirty-six hours later they were able to contact their families. “My daughter-in-law’s parents came to get us and brought us to theirhome in Alabama,” recounted Richard. “We spent two months recovering at my son’s home in Illinois before returning to Mississippi.”

The sunflower art also followed a circuitous route to Mississippi. Sr. Angeline Magro, OP, said the artwork found its way to the Dominican Sister’s home on Fontainebleau Boulevard that is walking distance to St. Mary’s Dominican High School. “Sr. Delia, who was Dominican’s Principal, most likely had the painting in her office. Eventually the painting came to our home,” shared Sr. Angeline, who taught Dee in one of Sr. Angeline’s French classes. “We are in the process of moving from our current house more than 16 years later and I came across the artwork. I brought it to Celeste to see what we should do about art. We did not know who the artist was.”

Celeste Shelsey Anding ’82 is Alumnae Director for St. Mary’s Dominican High School. Her research led Celeste to finding Dee’s husband by contacting his son John. Richard visited the high school to gratefully accept Dee’s artwork since ninety-nine percent of her personal artwork had been lost in Hurricane Katrina. He also spent time sharing with Celeste and Sr. Angeline the wonderful memories about Dee and their 53 years of marriage, including sharing the recipe for her favorite dessert, Lady Baltimore Cake, that he baked for every year on her birthday.

“I love the irony in that she never signed any of her work, yet 60 years later, this one treasure returns to her family. No name, no date, no signature – not even a complete road map of the painting’s journey in several Dominican residences!” said Celeste. “These sunflowers have lived among Dominican students, faculty, and Sisters for over 60 years – with the mission of prayer, study, community, and service. So happy these flowers can take these Dominican values back to the Cichon family, where they truly belong. May they continue to grow in their rightful home.”

Reflecting on the odyssey of the sunflower art and its homecoming, Richard credits it to, “Pure providence. After all these years, to have Dee’s painting back home was all because of providence, wonderful providence.”

St. Mary’s Dominican High School Alumnae Director Celeste Shelsey Anding ’82 and Richard Cichon Sr. stand next to Dee Cichon’s artwork in the school’s front foyer before it returns to the Cichon home.