All You Holy Men and Women: An Interview With “Dead Friend” Host Claire Ellendson

Nick Vance: 3, 2, 1, okay here we go. I don’t know if people use Cliff Notes anymore, but can you give us the “Cliff Notes” introduction for who you are? Maybe an interesting/embarrassing fact as well?

Claire Ellendson: Oh boy. Well, my name is Claire, I grew up in Faribault, MN, the third of ten kids. I was a cadle Cratholic -

NV: Hahaha, so close!

CE: Well, I think we just found our embarrassing fact. I served on N.E.T. from 2014-2016 and got to travel all over the US talking to kids about Jesus! I have since moved to Minneapolis, started working with people who have disabilities, and I am making a podcast called “Dead Friend.”

NV: Let’s jump right into it. What was the inspiration for the podcast?

CE: I’ve always really loved the lives of the saints, and I love finding opportunities to talk about them and learn about them. I begged my mom to teach me how to sew so I could make a stuffed lamb to hold when I dressed up as St Agnes for all Saints Day when I was 8 or 9. Classic Catholic homeschool girl. Side note, I think it also gave me a fascination for “true crime” stories, because how can you let a kid hear these stories about gruesome martyrdoms and not give them a strange intrigue in murder?

NV: …

CE: Well anyway… when I was serving on N.E.T., I had a team member who had never really heard about any of the lives of the saints before, and sometimes we’d be rooming together in a host home, trying to decompress after a crazy day, and she’d ask me to tell her about a saint as a kind of bedtime story. I would try to remember whatever I could about a random saint and tell their story, and then the two of us were often led into beautiful conversations about zeal for the Gospel, love of Christ, and holding onto Truth even in the midst of trial. And so that’s actually the original “Dead Friend” podcast, attempting to tell the stories of the saints to a good friend of mine as a kind of bedtime story. As I continued to do this, I grew in my desire to not only know more about the lives of the saints, but also try and come to know them personally, to ask for their inspiration and their accompaniment. What I saw in this was (I hope) a growing maturity in relationship with each one of these holy men and women; that I would be able to move past a sort of “biggest fan” approach towards a saint into one of trust and learning, letting both the earthly life of the saint inspire me, and the now-heavenly life of the saint accompany me.

NV: What does that look like for you?

CE: The biggest thing for me has been learning how to deal with difficulty and trial; in the same way that I would reach out to a parent or good friend in time of difficulty to look for wisdom and encouragement, I’ve come to experience the saints as “older brothers and sisters” in the faith whom I can turn to and experience their accompaniment through their writings and their examples. While the saints may have undergone struggles that look different than mine, the fact that they struggled and yet still remained faithful can meet me right in the moments of struggle and difficulty.

NV: That sounds amazing, and I know that I too have experienced the presence of the saints and have been called on by how human they all are.

CE: Right?!

NV: Mmmm. Okay, why the name “Dead Friend,” and how did the podcast come about?

CE: The name also came from my time on N.E.T. I wore a necklace with a bunch of saint medals on it, and when retreatants would ask about them, I referred to the saints as my “dead friends” who are continually with me and interceding for me. Super stereotypical N.E.T.-er girl, I know, but when it came to the podcast there seemed to be no other name that fit what I was trying to do here. I had spent several years after N.E.T. trying to continue to grow in my faith and learn about the lives of the saints, and it slowly realized itself into a podcast as both a way of discipline to make sure that I was actually doing this, as well as a ministry to tell the stories of the saints in a friendly, relatable way.

NV: Me gusta. How do you go about choosing which saints to do an episode about?

CE: It’s kind of haphazard, actually, which I suppose is betraying a little bit too much of the behind-the-scenes for this podcast, hahaha. More and more people have been sending in requests for certain saints, and so I’ve been working to honor requests, and I often end up learning about saints I am totally unfamiliar with. I try and diversify from episode to episode what “kind” of saint we’re discussing (if you can even talk about “kinds” of saints); I’ll try and mix it up with a martyr, and a doctor, and then maybe a guest podcast. One of the things I’ll come up against is when I have been preparing to present on a certain saint, even with a bunch of notes typed out, and in prayer I’ll just experience a pretty clear “no, it’s not time yet” for this saint. I have all sorts of notes and research and episodes that I’ve put on the backburner until the Lord brings it back up.

NV: What does research for an episode look like?

CE: I need to do a better job of citing my sources, hahaha! It kind of depends: I have a series of books that I’ll reference, but those are more for encyclopedic and fact-checking information. For some of them I have specific books that I’ll use, sometimes I have to resort to Wikipedia and other websites (I try and avoid that as much as possible, but sometimes I hit a wall and not really sure how to navigate all that information).

NV: Maybe it’s my overly academic side coming out, but sometimes when I’m listening to an episode, I start looking for some more citations or footnotes, but then I get irritated with myself for an unhelpful standard.

CE: Certainly, and I’ve been trying to learn how to walk the line between giving good information that I believe to be true, but also to keep the tone of the podcast more friendly and less book-report-ish.

NV: Here’s a question that I’ve wrestled with over the years: when it comes to the lives of the saints, how do you handle separating historical fact from, I don’t know what to call it… pious legend?

CE: Oooh. I remember a little while ago I did an episode on St. Brendan of Clonfert, and his life was a huge mixture of what we generally believe historically, and some stuff that generated a “what the heck?” kind of reaction… kind of similar to the episode on St. George. I’ll usually compare resources and see what the general consensus on the facts is, but especially with some of the older saints there seem to be all sorts of stories associated with them that are pretty out there. It’s a difficult question to wrestle with: usually I’ll start by praying that the Lord would show me what would be helpful for the listeners to hear. I don’t want to pretend for a second that I have a perfect gauge for knowing the difference between the two, but I do know that for many of these stories, the important question isn’t necessarily whether we can establish it as historical fact, but whether the stories that we have received are helpful for the people of God. 

NV: Sometimes when you hear about the saints, you learn that a certain saint is a patron saint of _____. Sometimes when I hear these things, it can be pretty funny: what’s the funniest patron saint you’ve come across?

CE: Usually the St. Lawrence one gets me: while being roasted alive on a grill, St. Lawrence supposedly joked “turn me over, I’m done on this side.” Because of comments like that, St. Lawrence is the patron saint of comedians. Also, St. Brigid of Kildare is the patron saint of chicken farmers, because of course she is. She’s helped me get over my irrational fear of chickens.

NV: What’s one of the saints you’ve come across that’s really impacted you?

CE: Comparing the experiences might be a strange question, but the first one that came to mind was the episode on Ven. Emile Engel. For years I have loved visiting the Schoenstatt sisters in Sleepy Eye, MN, and I had a chance to speak with a sister who was mentored by Ven. Emile. The way that this sister would speak about Ven. Emile was such a beautiful account of not only personal holiness, but such a human dimension as well. Ven. Emile also struggled with disabilities, and in my own work with people with disabilities, it brought her story so much closer to home.

NV: Probably an unfair question: who is the patron saint of the podcast?

CE: Not unfair at all, I’ve gotten this question before, hardly any discernment required: Mama Mary. She’s the Queen of the Saints and has been watching over this since day one.

NV: How has doing this podcast changed the way you pray and interact with the saints?

CE: Accountability has been a big thing with this; attempting to get an episode out every week forces me to be disciplined with my spiritual reading, research, and prayer. Another big thing has been continuing to ask for the grace of the Holy Spirit to continue to lead this podcast where He wants it to go, so that it could be the Lord’s work and under the Lord’s direction. It’s also been a great opportunity to do ministry while having a full-time job, and with the pandemic limiting in-person opportunities to meet with people, this has been a way that I hope has been blessing others with the lives of the saints. Over and over, I feel like I’ve received so much more than I’ve given in all this, experiencing the Lord’s presence and His leadership in the midst of all this. As I took each episode to prayer, especially in Eucharistic Adoration, I felt the Lord humbling me and bringing me into relationship with so many of these saints as not only examples but friends.

NV: I was about to ask you about your favorite episode, but obviously it’s the one you did with me on St. Damien of Molokai. What’s something you would say to someone interested in either the podcast or just learning more about the lives of the saints? 

CE: There are saints in every generation, men and women totally given over to the Lord. Learning about them is not only inspiring, but it really shows the Lord’s providence through all of human history, continuing to lead people into His love.

  

Many thanks to Claire for doing this interview (which has been edited for length and clarity). Check out her podcast here or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have a request for a specific saint or want to reach out to Claire, send her an email or connect with the show on social media.

 

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Nicholas Vance is a seminarian studying for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. A West St. Paul native, he came back to the Faith his freshman year of college, and became involved with Saint Paul’s Outreach and the Catholic Studies community. He graduated from the University of St. Thomas in 2018 with degrees in Communications & Journalism and Catholic Studies. A rueful marathoner, a Röpke-Wojtyła Fellow with the Catholic University of America, and a once-upon-a-time youth minister, he loves hiking, reading, playing music, and the delightful first sip of coffee in the morning. He proudly calls Transfiguration in Oakdale (“the rockin’ East Side”) his home parish, and is in seminary formation at the Saint Paul Seminary.