(1934-2023)

Marlene Ann Kuhnlein entered the world at just six and a half months’ gestation on March 2, 1934, and spent the first three weeks of her life in an incubator at Lewis Memorial Maternity Hospital in Chicago. She was the only child of Anthony and Irene (Lowen) Kuhnlein, who lived in the Jackson Park area of Chicago’s South Side.
 
Tony and Irene officially met at a dance in Chicago, although they may have crossed paths earlier since there was a very distant family relationship. Tony worked as a streetcar conductor and, in his younger days, played baseball for the Chicago White Sox, while before their marriage, Irene was a telephone operator. 
 
When Tony was a youngster, he was hit in the head with a baseball, and as an adult, a streetcar accident gave him another head injury. This led to seizures, which ultimately proved fatal; he died in 1937 at the age of thirty-three, when Marlene was just three years old.
 
“Naturally, I have regretted never really knowing my father,” Sister Marlene wrote in her autobiography. “I have always believed that my vocation was a gift that God bestowed on me due to my father’s prayers for me before His throne.”

Read more about Sister Marlene (PDF).

Memorial gifts may be made to Adrian Dominican Sisters, 1257 East Siena Heights Drive, Adrian, Michigan, 49221. 

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(1928-2023)

Mary, the world is a better place because you graced it with your presence as a woman of faith who was committed to education as a path to peace and justice among all people.

Sister Rosemary Asaro, the Holy Rosary Chapter assistant, was speaking of Sister Mary Beaubien, for whose wake Sister Rosemary was preaching the eulogy and from whose autobiography Sister Rosemary had just read aloud this sentence: “Education is the means by which peace and justice are effectively accomplished.”

Mary Josephine was the third of five surviving children born to Oliver and Clara (Sierin) Beaubien, following Cecelia and Joseph and before Margaret and Robert. Oliver and Clara’s first child, a boy, died at just four days old.

Oliver was born in Monroe County, Michigan, while Clara was born in Paulding County, Ohio. The two met because Clara came to work for Oliver’s mother, a widow after the Beaubien family moved to Paulding County. Oliver was twenty-nine, and Clara was nineteen.

The couple farmed a tract of land in Paulding County. Early on in their marriage, they took in three children whose parents had died or could not care for them, and so their oldest daughter, Cecelia, was born with a ready-made group of brothers.

Read more about Sister Mary (PDF).

 

Memorial gifts may be made to Adrian Dominican Sisters, 1257 East Siena Heights Drive, Adrian, Michigan, 49221. 

Sister's Memorial Card (PDF)

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(1932-2023)

Sister Geraldine Marie Maloney, Sister Gerry to all who knew her, was born on May 11, 1932, in Chicago to an Irish-American father and an Italian-American mother – so “I have the best of both worlds!” she said in her June 24, 2019, “A Sister’s Story” video.

Sister Gerry’s parents were William and Mary (Jannotta) Maloney, both Chicago natives who lived on the city’s South Side. William was a Chicago police officer, while Mary was a homemaker. Gerry was the oldest of the couple’s four children, with William, Mary Ellen, and Patricia joining the family over time.

Her elementary-school years were spent at Our Lady of Peace School, which was staffed by the Kentucky Dominican Sisters. When it came time for high school, Gerry enrolled at Aquinas Dominican, where she got involved in many activities, including the National Honor Society, the volleyball team, and several clubs. She also had a busy social life that included trips to the movies with her friends every Friday, no matter what was playing.

All of her extracurricular activities at Aquinas brought her into contact with the Sisters who advised those various organizations, so she got to know them on a deeper level than she ever had the Kentucky Sisters. As early as her sophomore year, she began considering entering religious life. She knew that if she did, it would be with the Adrian Dominican Sisters because they were such joyful, happy women. Then, during her senior year, she visited Adrian for the reception of several Aquinas graduates, and that sealed the deal for her.

Read more about Sister Geraldine (PDF).

 

Memorial gifts may be made to Adrian Dominican Sisters, 1257 East Siena Heights Drive, Adrian, Michigan, 49221. 

Sister's Memorial Card (PDF)

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(1933-2023)

The Song of Songs is one of the most beautiful love poems in Scripture. Perhaps that is what Julianne read and heard in her heart in 1950 when she entered the Felicians. She asked to see the lover’s face and to hear his voice. The love letters of God and Julianne were written for twenty years with the Felician Sisters, and then the cleft of life’s rocks echoed the voice of her beloved to the Adrian Dominican Sisters.

Sister Patricia Harvat opened her homily for Sister Julianne Wolny’s funeral with this reflection on Sister Julianne’s long relationship with her God, a connection echoed by Sister Julianne herself when she wrote in one of her annals: “Ever since I left home in 1947 to enter the Felician Academy, I wanted to deepen my relationship with the Lord through a religious commitment.”

Sister Julianne was born on February 16, 1933, in Saginaw, Michigan, to Frank and Martha (Sobkowiak) Wolny, both of whom were born in Germany. She was the oldest child of three, with Bernard and Marianne rounding out the family.

Read more about Sister Julianne (PDF).

 

Memorial gifts may be made to Adrian Dominican Sisters, 1257 East Siena Heights Drive, Adrian, Michigan, 49221. 

Sister's Memorial Card (PDF)

 

Leave your comments and remembrances. (If you don't see the comment box below, click on the "Read More" link).