The inmates at the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Stillwater knew there was something special about Dee Swanson.

Swanson, who taught literacy and math at the prison for 21 years, never felt scared or had any issues with foul language or behavior, said Daniel Schuster, a longtime friend. “They knew she was a former nun, and the inmates policed her teaching area,” he said. “They would always say, ‘In this room, you don’t do that.’ She was beloved there.”

Swanson, of Burnsville, died Feb. 9 of complications related to pancreatic cancer at the Our Lady of Peace Hospice in St. Paul. She was 87.

When Swanson retired from teaching at the prison in 1997, she was hailed as a “champion” whose “interest in helping others came naturally,” according to an article published in “The Prison Mirror.”

“Such champions do not come along very often,” the article stated. “She did some incredibly good things for an incredible number of students, (and) you have to commend someone like her. Swanson had a lifelong devotion to helping people learn, and it mattered little that the learning was occurring in a prison environment. She taught people that their place in life, on the lineal list, starts with their growth and, but of course, their grades too.”

Swanson was born in Winthrop, Minn., in 1935, the only child of Arnold and Evelyn Swanson; her mother died during childbirth, Schuster said.

Swanson attended Good Counsel Academy in Mankato, run by the School Sisters of Notre Dame, and became a nun during high school. “Sister Arnelda,” as she was known, graduated from Mount Mary College in Milwaukee in 1964 with a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts; she later took graduate courses at the University of Detroit.

Swanson taught at various grade schools in Minnesota. Her longest tenure was at Sacred Heart on the East Side of St. Paul, where she taught for seven years in the late 1950s and early 1960s, said Schuster, who was in one of Swanson’s fifth-grade classes at Sacred Heart.

“She was my favorite teacher,” said Schuster, who lives in Woodbury. “She had this wonderful, robust laugh. Nuns wore habits, and they were kind of imposing people, at least to a 10-year-old, but there was something about her laugh. She was loud, and she loved to laugh, and somehow you just knew that she cared about you.”

Swanson was a demanding teacher who had high expectations for her students, Schuster said. “She wasn’t easy,” he said. “She demanded the best of you, but you wanted to do it — for her.”

Schuster stayed in touch with Swanson, who left the order in 1972, for the 64 years they knew one another, he said. “She had three goals in life: One was to go to Alaska, one was to pilot a plane, and one was to go teach at a prison,” he said. “She got to go to Alaska and taught at the prison, but she never piloted a plane.”

Swanson “had a contagiously optimistic outlook on life,” according to her obituary. “Dee was ferociously independent and unfailingly generous. She touched countless lives in her teaching ministry. She will be profoundly missed by her many friends at the Burnsville Co-op where she lived, and by her relatives, classmates, former students, and a legion of friends. To know Dee was to love her. She leaves this world far better than she found it.”

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. on Wednesday at Mueller Memorial in St. Paul, with visitation from 10 a.m. until the time of the service; Schuster, her former student, will be the funeral celebrant.