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(1929-2021)
I would like to be remembered as a joy-filled Dominican committed to my Adrian Congregation, a person who meets and praises God in the beauty and wonder of creation. I would like the world to be a little better for my having lived in it. As Rich Heffern wrote, I would like to be “marinated in life’s goodness” – then I will be prepared to dance to the joy of life into the heavenly Jerusalem.
Sister Jean Irene McAllister concluded a March 2005 update to her autobiography with these sentences summing up her long life as an Adrian Dominican Sister.
The future Sister Jean Irene was born January 24, 1929, in Redford, Michigan, and baptized Audrey Anita. She was the older of two girls born to Daniel and Genevieve (Wagner) McAllister; her sister Catherine (known as Kay) followed on Christmas Eve 1934.
Both Daniel and Genevieve were born into farming families, Daniel in Kawkawlin Township, Michigan, near Bay City, and Genevieve in Colon, Michigan, in the southwestern part of the state. Daniel’s parents both died when he was very young, however, and he was sent to the St. Francis Boys’ Home in Detroit.
Read more about Sister Jean Irene (pdf)
Memorial gifts may be made to Adrian Dominican Sisters, 1257 East Siena Heights Drive, Adrian, Michigan, 49221.
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(1934-2021)
There’s a beautiful quote from the ancient Greek statesman Pericles that is found on many tombstones which says, “What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone, but what is woven into the lives of others.”
We are gathered in this sacred space today to honor and recognize our sister Clarice Moyle and her many gifts, gifts which are now woven as beautiful threads into our lives and the lives of her beloved family and dear friends …
These paragraphs began Sister Rosemary Finnegan’s homily for the funeral of Sister Clarice Moyle, a “valiant woman” in the mold of the one described in the famous reading from Proverbs 31, the funeral Mass’s first reading.
Clarice Marie Moyle was born on October 18, 1934, in Jacksonville, Florida, to James and Mary (Ohmer) Moyle. She was the second of the couple’s two children, born nine years after her sister, Grace.
Read more about Sister Clarice (PDF)
We regret that an error caused only the audio and not the video to be recorded.
(1935-2021)
Frances Louise Guethlein, the future Sister Marian Edward, was born in Detroit on May 7, 1935, to Edward and Mary (Lucey) Guethlein. Edward was a native of Evansville, Indiana, while Mary came to the U.S. from Kilgarvin, Ireland, at the age of seventeen.
The couple had five children, of whom Frances was in the middle. She had three sisters, Barbara, Kathleen (known as Kay) and Joan, and a brother, Ed.
The Guethleins originally lived in St. Bridget Parish in Detroit, and Frances attended first and second grades at St. Bridget School. When she was in third grade, however, the family moved to Livonia, a Detroit suburb, and Edward and Mary enrolled their children at Our Lady of Sorrows School, which was staffed by the Adrian Dominican Sisters, in nearby Farmington as soon as the school had space for them.
Read more about Sister Marian (PDF)
Literally and figuratively tall in stature and standing, Sister Maureen opened many doors and broke many glass ceilings in American Catholic higher education for women, religious and laypersons because of her contributions at St. Xavier University, Mercy College of Detroit and University of Detroit Mercy. Thirty-one years after the bold collaboration of her and Fr. Robert Mitchell, S.J. to make Mercy College of Detroit and University of Detroit a strong Catholic institution, she leaves a legacy that will benefit tens of thousands of future leaders in Michigan, the United States and the world for decades. — Dr. Antoine Garibaldi, President, University of Detroit Mercy
In his tribute to Sister Maureen Fay, one of his predecessors, after her passing, Dr. Garibaldi was honoring the Adrian Dominican Sister who had helped direct the consolidation of Mercy College and the University of Detroit and served for twenty-one years in the institutions’ presidency.
Sister Maureen was born May 18, 1934, in Chicago to Michael and Anne (Whalen) Fay. Michael was an Irish immigrant from County Roscommon who had come to America at the age of eighteen, while Anne was a Chicago native but was the daughter of an immigrant from Galway, Ireland. According to a biographical sketch of herself that Sister Maureen wrote for an Irish publication in Detroit, family lore had it that Michael had left Ireland one step ahead of the British, who were hunting him for his involvement with the Irish Republican Army. Sister Maureen said in her 2016 “A Sister’s Story” video that when her father got to Ellis Island, he wrote down his name in such shaky handwriting that the immigration official could not read it – and so the family name, Fahey, became Fay.
Read more about Sister Maureen (pdf)
Our Adrian Dominican cemetery with its circular headstones is a beautiful place of rest for women who gave their lives in service to God — and a peaceful place for contemplation and remembrance.
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