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(1934-2026)
County Donegal, Ireland, was the ancestral home of Sister Mary Ward, who was very proud of her Irish heritage. Her parents, Michael Ward and Bridget Ryan, both grew up there – he in Carrick, she in Kilcar – but they had to cross “the pond” and end up in Chicago before their paths connected.
Michael came through Ellis Island in 1922 at the age of twenty-three and went to live with his brother Patrick in Chicago. About four months later in 1923, nineteen-year-old Bridget followed suit, although her first stop in the U.S. after Ellis Island was Indianapolis, where her sister Hannah lived. She moved to Chicago soon thereafter to be closer to other family members and friends, and it was there that she and Michael met although they actually married in California after moving there to be closer to two of Bridget’s sisters and to find work.
After the birth of their first child, Michael, in California, the little family returned to Chicago, where they settled on the north side. Two more boys, James and John, came next, followed by a baby girl who did not survive, and then Mary, who was born on December 1, 1934. A snowstorm kept mother and baby in the hospital several days longer than usual, and Mary’s Aunt Margaret was enlisted to care for the other children during that time.
Over the next several years, five more children were born into the family: Vincent, Jane, Theresa, Margaret, and Susan.
Mary met the Adrian Dominican Sisters as a student at Queen of Angels School. Sister Carol Johannes, a Queen of Angels student at the same time, shared this memory of their school at Sister Mary’s wake:
The school was on Western Avenue where, all the while we were there, old, rickety, very noisy streetcars ran on rails. Early in the day it wasn’t too bad because the streetcars came infrequently. But later in the day as traffic became heavier they rumbled back and forth over and over, producing a deafening roar, so much so that if we were doing any oral reading we had to stop and wait until the streetcar passed before going on.
Read more about Sister Mary (PDF)
Memorial gifts may be made to Adrian Dominican Sisters, 1257 East Siena Heights Drive, Adrian, MI, 49221. Funeral arrangements are being handled by Anderson-Marry Funeral Home, Adrian.
Sister's Memorial Card (PDF)
Note: To view recordings with closed captioning, they must be viewed on our public video library rather than through the links below.
Recording of Sister Mary's Vigil Service - After clicking the link, download the recording by right-clicking on the video choosing "Save video as." Worship Aid (PDF)
Recording of Sister Mary's Funeral Mass - After clicking the link, download the recording by right-clicking on the video choosing "Save video as." Worship Aid (PDF)
Leave your comments and remembrances – if you don't see the comment box below, click on the "Read More" link.
(1935-2026)
Sister Rosita Garcia Bernardo, affectionately known as “RB” or by her preferred name, Rose, was born on May 3, 1935, in Guagua, Pampanga, Philippines, to Pedro Bernardo and Maria Garcia. She was the couple’s only child but had a half-brother, Nicolas, from her mother’s first marriage.
Pedro died when Rosita was very young, and at some point Maria and her children moved from Guagua to the municipality of Floridablanco, also in the province of Pampanga. Maria became a cook for a local family, and Rosita grew up among the family’s children.
She received her early schooling at Floridablanco Elementary and then St. Augustine Academy (now the St. Augustine Academy of Pampanga), from which she graduated in 1953.
At quite a young age, she had begun working in a very successful store her brother owned, and when she was old enough to have her own career, Nicolas opened a second, smaller, store and turned it over to her to operate. This unlikely location was where she first came into contact with the Dominican Sisters of Our Lady of Remedies.
Read more about Sister Rosita (PDF)
Memorial gifts may be made to Adrian Dominican Sisters, 1257 East Siena Heights Drive, Adrian, MI, 49221.
Recording of Sister Rosita's (and Sister Meliza's) Mass of Remembrance - After clicking the link, download the recording by right-clicking on the video choosing "Save video as."
(1936-2026)
When Sister Ann Marie Petri celebrated her Golden Jubilee in the Congregation in 2006, the Catholic Times, which at the time covered the Diocese of Lansing, wrote an article about her in its June 24-30 issue that described how she came to be an Adrian Dominican Sister.
As Sister Ann Marie told the story, when her two aunts in the Congregation, Sisters Antoinette and Seraphica, made their home visits, she loved hearing their stories, and one of them told her once that if she joined the convent, she’d see the world. She thought it would be exciting to, if not see the world, at least be missioned to California, Florida, and Chicago as her aunts had been.
“But,” she told the newspaper, “the funny thing is, I never got out of Michigan” except for three years of graduate-level study at Notre Dame.
Ann Marie Petri was born on April 21, 1936, in Detroit to Francis and Ernestine (Adey) Petri. Ernestine’s mother, Helena Blackmore, was born in England and raised in a Dominican boarding school, and when she was sixteen, the Sisters sent her to Austria to be a governess to two little girls. There, she met and married a soldier who, when Ernestine was three years old, was declared missing in action in World War I. No trace of him was ever found.
Helena and her daughter left Austria and eventually ended up in Detroit. Because of the anti-German sentiment of the time, Helena changed the family surname from Schnopf to Adey.
Ernestine met Francis in Detroit when she was sixteen years old and he twenty. They married four years later in 1934.
Read more about Sister Ann Marie (PDF)
Recording of Sister Ann Marie's Vigil Service - After clicking the link, download the recording by right-clicking on the video choosing "Save video as." Worship Aid (PDF)
Recording of Sister Ann Marie's Funeral Mass - After clicking the link, download the recording by right-clicking on the video choosing "Save video as." Worship Aid (PDF)
(1931-2026)
When Sister Elizabeth Lynch first became principal of St. Denis School in Chicago in 1971, she liked the school and its South Side neighborhood so much that she knew it was the right place for her. In fact, it remained the right place for her for a remarkable thirty years.
For Elizabeth, being at St. Denis meant coming home to Chicago. She was born there on May 3, 1931, and baptized Elizabeth Mary Alice. She was the younger of the two children of Charles and Alice (O’Neil) Lynch, following her brother, Patrick, who was two years older than she. Charles was a Chicago police officer, as his father had been before him, and Patrick eventually followed in both of their footsteps on the police force.
Elizabeth’s childhood was graced by, as she put it in her life story, “loving and fun parents and a delightful brother,” as well as both sets of grandparents and “many doting aunts and uncles.” She attended kindergarten at St. Peter Canisius School and first grade at St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Oak Park.
When she was ready to start second grade, the family moved into St. Nicholas of Tolentine Parish, where the Adrian Dominicans taught in the parish school. The Sisters were a huge influence on her: even though she was taught by the Sisters of St. Casimir in high school at St. Casimir Academy and had two aunts and a cousin who were Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, when she finally decided she had a vocation, it was to the Adrian Dominican Sisters… much to the surprise of her BVM aunts.
After graduating from St. Casimir in 1949, Elizabeth worked as a stenographer for the Wilson Meat Packing Company for about a year and a half until her school friend Ann Leonard, later to become Ann Morrissey, suggested they write to Adrian to ask for entrance. They both became postulants in February 1951. Although Ann (Sister Thomas Therese) left during their novitiate, she and Sister Elizabeth remained great friends.
Read more about Sister Elizabeth (PDF)
Recording of Sister Elizabeth's Vigil Service - After clicking the link, download the recording by right-clicking on the video choosing "Save video as." Worship Aid (PDF)
Recording of Sister Elizabeth's Funeral Mass - After clicking the link, download the recording by right-clicking on the video choosing "Save video as." Worship Aid (PDF)
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