Antoinette Rodez Schiesler
Mary Antoinette "Toni" Rodez Schiesler (December 13, 1934 – April 8, 1996) (née Carole Virginia Rodez) was an American chemist and director of research at Villanova University. She was also a former Roman Catholic nun and Episcopal deaconess. Early life Carole Virginia was born in Chicago, Illinois. Her mother, Gladyce Cunningham Rodez, was a singer from New Haven, Connecticut, who had moved to Chicago to search for work with the big bands. There, at the age of 26, she was raped by a "Cuban man named Rodriguez", and became pregnant. Gladyce raised her daughter as a single mother, choosing to move back to familiar New Haven rather than raise her daughter in a strange city, despite knowing that she would be shame and excluded from her family for having a child out of wedlock. Carole only discovered her history when she was in her mid-thirties. Carole described her mother as having a "terrible, terrible temper", but explained that "when she could manage it, gave her all." Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, in her book I've Known Rivers: Lives of Loss and Liberation, writes: "Toni remembers sitting on her grandmother's knees by the radio listening to her mother sing, loving the mellow, soothing voice.