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(1949-2024)
Associate Christa Marie Rusch of Jupiter, Florida, died on January 7, 2024, at the age of 74.
Christa, the youngest of three children (and the only girl) was born on June 8, 1949, in Hof, Germany. Her family moved to Regensburg when she was three years old. Her elementary and secondary education came at a Catholic boarding school in Würzburg, Germany, and after graduation she remained in Würtzburg to attend college. She studied education and psychology and over time earned a Bachelor of Science degree in education, an Educational Specialist degree, and two master’s degrees, one in education and one in counseling and guidance.
She worked in the education field in Germany for several years, and met her husband Roger, who was in the military at the time, while she was still in her homeland. The couple married in 1970 and went on to have a daughter and a son.
Christa came to the United States in 1971, although she and Roger continued to travel regularly between the US and Germany due to his work in the military as a field engineer. Roger later opened his own business as a computer scientist. Her dream of becoming an American citizen was realized on December 19, 2001.
Her contact with the Adrian Dominicans began at Rosarian Academy, where her son was a student and where she worked over time as a classroom assistant, an aftercare assistant, and for a year as a religion teacher. Being connected with the Sisters at Rosarian led her to want to become an Associate, and she completed the formation process in 1996 under the mentorship of Sister Anne Marie Snyder, OP.
Early on in her time as an Associate, Christa undertook the task of translating the book that had been produced in 1983 by our “mother” convent, Holy Cross in Regensburg, for its 750th anniversary. Especially given her own roots in Regensburg, she wanted to be able to share an English-language version of the book with ADS Sisters and Associates.
She was selected as a Representative of the Associate Program, as it was then known, in 2002.
Her other activities included serving as a tutor at the DePorres P.L.A.C.E. Literacy Center in West Palm Beach, Florida; working with her parish’s youth group; and collaborating with groups committed to peace, human rights, and care of creation, such as Pax Christi.
At Rosarian, she enjoyed doing crafts with the children and loved to tell them about her German heritage, even teaching them how to say a few words in German. She was known as a hard worker who embodied Dominican values and spoke to the students about them.
Christa loved being an Associate and felt deeply connected to the Congregation through being in Associate Life. As she wrote in one of her more recent annals, “Associate Life is part of my life.”
Christa’s husband and two children survive her. No services are planned at this time.
Memorial gifts may be made to Adrian Dominican Sisters, 1257 East Siena Heights Drive, Adrian, Michigan, 49221.
(1941-2024)
On the first day of summer, June 21, 1941, Richard and Margaret (Sheldon) Kowalski of Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan, welcomed their first child into the world, a girl they named Joan Elizabeth.
Joan would be followed three years later by a boy, Richard. At the time of Joan’s birth, according to her birth certificate, her father was an accountant for the Ferry-Morse Seed Company, but at some point thereafter, he apparently became chief financial officer for the Packard Motor Car Co. According to a story Joan herself told, her father left the company after his advice was not heeded on changes that needed to be made or it would go out of business – and Packard did, indeed, cease operations in the late 1950s.
The family moved to a farm in Whitmore Lake, Michigan, a short distance west of Detroit. Although Richard never actually farmed the land – he worked in real estate and insurance -- it was a perfect place for his children and their friends to play and have all sorts of adventures.
Joan attended grade school first at Gesu in Detroit, then after the family’s move to Whitmore Lake, she attended St. Thomas School in Ann Arbor and then St. Patrick School in Brighton. The latter gave her her first experience with the Adrian Dominican Sisters. When it was time for high school, she came to Adrian to attend St. Joseph Academy.
She had completed her second year as an “Academy girl” when she wrote to Mother Gerald seeking admission to the Congregation. And so it was that on June 26, 1957, after having just marked her sixteenth birthday five days earlier, she entered the Adrian Dominican Congregation.
Read more about Sister Joan (PDF)
Sister's Memorial Card (PDF)
Recording of Sister Joan's Vigil Service - After clicking the link, download the recording by clicking on the three dots at the bottom right corner of the screen and choosing "Download." Worship Aid (PDF)
Recording of Sister Joan's Funeral Mass - After clicking the link, download the recording by clicking on the three dots at the bottom right corner of the screen and choosing "Download." Worship Aid (PDF)
Leave your comments and remembrances (if you don't see the comment box below, click on the "Read More" link).
(1933-2023)
On September 10, 1933, a group of children ranging in age from two to thirteen marched down the block in their Crystal Lake, Illinois, neighborhood, carrying a sign referring not to the National Recovery Act that had recently come into being but to a more personally momentous event. The sign read “NRA: ’Nother Riley Arrived.”
That “’ Nother Riley” was Helen Virginia, the future Sister Maria Riley. She was the eighth and final child of William and Helen (McCullough) Riley, joining siblings William, Mary Jane, Fred, Bob, Phil, Jim, and Tom.
All the children attended St. Thomas the Apostle School in Crystal Lake, which the Springfield Dominican Sisters staffed. Apparently, the Springfield Sisters had their eyes on Helen right from the start; Sister Maria wrote in her autobiography – which she titled “A Life Worth Living” – that, according to legend, when she was baptized, she was taken up to the altar of the Blessed Mother by Sister (later Mother) Mary Imelda Sudden of the Springfield congregation. Sister Imelda “prayed that I would become a Dominican,” Sister Maria wrote. “She just forgot to mention which kind.”
Helen’s Adrian Dominican connection was sealed when she enrolled for her high school education at Mount St. Mary Academy in St. Charles, Illinois. After graduating from “the Mount” in 1951, she went on to Barry College (University) in Miami, Florida. She had been there less than one academic year when she began making arrangements to enter the Congregation.
Read more about Sister Maria (PDF)
Recording of Sister Maria's Vigil Service - After clicking the link, download the recording by clicking on the three dots at the bottom right corner of the screen and choosing "Download." Worship Aid (PDF)
Recording of Sister Maria's Funeral Mass - After clicking the link, download the recording by clicking on the three dots at the bottom right corner of the screen and choosing "Download." Worship Aid (PDF)
(1938-2023)
“There are three characteristics I remember as a child that permeated [the] two Italian families from which I have my roots: living in poverty, love of God, and love for one another.”
Sister Mary Catherine Gagliano’s autobiography begins with a summation of the backgrounds of her parents, both of whom were the children of Sicilian immigrants. Alex, her father, was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where his parents had settled and opened a strawberry farm. Her mother, Genevieve, was born in Beloit, Wisconsin; a few years later, her family moved to Freeport, Illinois.
When Alex was nineteen, he, his mother, and his uncle took a riverboat up the Mississippi River in search of a better place for the family to live and somehow ended up in Rockford, Illinois. Twelve years later, at a dance, he met Genevieve, who had come from Freeport to Rockford to visit her sister and brother-in-law. Genevieve was nineteen and Alex was thirty-one, which led both sets of parents to oppose their marriage, but the couple was sure their love would withstand the difference in their ages, and they turned out to be right.
Read more about Sister Mary Catherine (PDF).
Recording of Sister Mary Catherine's Vigil Service - After clicking the link, download the recording by clicking on the three dots at the bottom right corner of the screen and choosing "Download." Worship Aid (PDF)
Recording of Sister Mary Catherine's Funeral Mass - After clicking the link, download the recording by clicking on the three dots at the bottom right corner of the screen and choosing "Download." Worship Aid (PDF)
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