Biography
Dorothy M. Hennessey was a Franciscan sister, teacher and peace activist from Iowa. She and her sister Gwen were sentenced in 2001 for the School of the Americas protest at Fort Benning. Dorothy was 88 at the time of the six-month sentence, not in her seventies. She died in January 2008 at age 94.
Each year on the November anniversary of the assassination of six Jesuits, their housekeeper, and her daughter at the University of Central America in San Salvador in 1989, peace activists gather at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia, site of the U.S. Army School of the Americas / Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), to commemorate the dead and to call for the school's closure. Hundreds have crossed the line onto the base over four decades of vigils; many have served federal sentences ranging from 30 days to a year for trespass.
Identity, vital dates and source reconciliation
The January 30, 2008 Congressional Record tribute and reproduced Rekha Basu article expressly give a 1913 birth year and identify Dorothy and Gwen as Franciscan sisters. A public cemetery index for Sr. Dorothy Marie Hennessey in Dubuque reports March 24, 1913 as her birth date. The Catholic News Service obituary hosted by the Archdiocese of Baltimore reports death on January 24 at age 94, as does contemporaneous National Catholic Reporter coverage dated February 8, 2008. This differs from Senator Harkin's January 25 wording; the obituary date is used, and the conflict is retained here. Dorothy's later transfer from Pekin to a Dubuque correctional facility was not an unconditional prison release; this source does not establish an exact transfer or discharge day.
