An unprecedented re-union of Blessed Mother Teresa's closest friends, co-workers and relatives will be held at St. Vincent College this fall at a conference marking the 10th anniversary of her death.

Mother Teresa, 1988

"I'm sure this will have potent theology, but it will all be carried out in the simplicity of stories," said Jim Towey, president of the Benedictine college in Latrobe, and Mother Teresa's legal counsel from 1985 until her death on Sept. 5, 1997. She was beatified Oct. 20, 2003.

The conference will be held Oct. 5-7.

The Catholic nun from Albania founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India, in 1950 to care for the poorest of the poor. Active now in 134 nations, its projects include hospices for the dying, homeless shelters and homes for unwed mothers.

Conference speakers will include Sister M. Nirmala, her successor as head of the order; Agi Guttadauro, her only niece; the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, who is leading her cause for sainthood; and several of her closest friends and traveling companions. Speakers and attendees are coming from all over the world, including people who adopted babies from her first orphanage -- with their now-grown children.

Telling their stories about her to one another will be a new experience for them, Mr. Towey said.

"Mother had a lot of people she was very close to, but it was all business when she was alive," he said. "There was never a time for anyone to share stories with each other.

"When she died, everyone was in their own world, doing what Mother wanted them to do. And we were never together except for the funeral, when everyone was just shattered. We were also together for her beatification, but things were happening so fast we didn't have more than five minutes to speak to each other."

Mr. Towey and all of the presenters have been interviewed by the church investigators working on her canonization, he said. "We all told our stories to the [investigator] but we have never told them to each other," he said.

One he does know -- but one he will not reveal the punch line to -- concerns an incident when Mother Teresa mistook a Minnesota bar for a coffee shop and walked in on a crowd of beer-swilling workmen. The friend who was with her will tell that story, he said.

"The more you know about Mother Teresa, the more you love her," he said. "The more you hear stories about Mother Teresa, the more you realize she truly was a saint."

The conference begins with a Mass at 4:30 p.m. Oct. 5 and concludes with a lunch that the participants will serve to poor people on Oct. 7.

There is no registration fee for the conference, which is partly underwritten by a grant from the Andreas Family Foundation. The college intends to create a DVD of the event, and is in discussion with a cable network about possibly televising it, Mr. Towey said.

Invitations have been sent to people with an interest in Blessed Mother Teresa, and spaces for the public will not be allocated until the deadline for invited guests to respond has passed. However, those who want an opportunity to attend can be put on a waiting list by contacting Julie Gulling at 724-805-2962 or julie.gulling@email.stvincent.edu.