Miriam Brown was born in 1939, and was raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She entered the Sinsinawa Dominican motherhouse in Sinsinawa, Wisconsin as a teenager, and took her vows in the Ordo Praedicatorum or Order of Preachers (O.P.), as a Sinsinawa Dominican. After graduating from Rosary College with a degree in secondary education, she taught in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Madison, Wisconsin; and Chicago, Illinois; then returned to teaching in Madison and later worked in a coal mining community in West Virginia. Sister Miriam also holds master's degrees in English from the College of St. Thomas and in religious studies from Fordham University.
The farm closings brought on by the financial crisis of the 1980s led to the founding of the Churches' Center for Land and People (CCLP), an ecumenical organization focusing on “Spirituality, Community, Earth Stewardship, and Justice.” A steering committee of laypeople and clerics, including Roman Catholics and members of several Protestant denominations, convened a series of meetings during 1989, and incorporated as the Churches' Center for Land and People in 1990. CCLP worked to support farming communities in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa, by publishing a newsletter and sponsoring workshops and Annual Rural Life Gatherings to connect people and organizations with similar concerns. Part of the 450 acres on which the Sinsinawa Mound Center is located is devoted to a farm that uses sustainable practices, and the Center served as the venue for the Upper Midwest Organic Farming Conference from 1994 to 1999. Sister Miriam served as Executive Director of CCLP from 1989 until the summer of 2003. In 2015, the name of the organization changed to the Food, Faith and Farming Network (FFFN).
Sister Miriam currently serves as a spiritual director at the Siena Retreat Center in Racine, Wisconsin.
