(1931-2018)

When he was in his early twenties, James McKillop of Coalridge, Scotland, left his homeland for Australia to find work. Five years later, restless, he sailed to New Zealand for a new adventure and took up residence at a boarding house there. As it so happened, at about the same time a young lass from Wishaw, Scotland, Catherine Buchanan, came to New Zealand to find work to help support her mother, and rented a room at the same boarding house.

Three years later, James and Catherine got married, and a year after that the young couple moved to the U.S. and settled in Detroit, where James worked as a maintenance man. When Catherine became pregnant with their first child, she returned to her hometown so that her mother could help with the birth, and so it came to be that their oldest daughter, whom they also named Catherine, was born in Wishaw on September 10, 1931.

Mother and daughter returned to Detroit when little Catherine was about eight months old. Over time, five more children were born: Marguerite, Patricia, James, John, and Joseph. The family lived in St. Rose of Lima Parish until 1942 and then moved to nearby Grosse Pointe, where Catherine finished grade school and high school at St. Paul’s.

Read more about Sister Catherine (pdf)

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

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(1959-2018)

As a child growing up in Angeles City, Philippines, Amelia Limiac Sarmiento was surrounded by the Catholic faith. Her parents, Jacobo Sarmiento and Susana Limiac, brought up their children with regular Sunday Mass and daily recitation of the Rosary. And, although she attended public grade school, she received regular catechetical instruction and even dreamed of becoming a catechist herself someday.

Amelia was born on January 22, 1959, the third of six children, all girls, born to Jacobo and Susana. Her siblings were Avelina, Teresita, Alicia, Linda and Carlota. After graduating from high school at Republic Central Colleges in Angeles City, she attended Holy Angel College (University), also in Angeles City, and graduated in 1979 with her bachelor’s degree in accounting. She then was able to fulfill her childhood desire to become a catechist and began working alongside the local Benedictine Sisters in their parish. During that time, in 1980, her father died.

The Benedictines quickly noticed her apostolic spirit and encouraged her to join them, and she spent six months as an aspirant with them. She chose not to continue that process because she decided she needed more time to discern God’s plan for her, but then Sister Rosita Yaya, of the Dominican Sisters of Our Lady of Remedies, came to the parish to talk with the young women about religious life, and Amelia began taking the required steps for possible entrance into that community. It was 1983.

Read more about Sister Amelia (pdf)

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

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(1926-2018)

“My personal history is one directed by a loving Heavenly Father, a loving family, and a loving religious community – and  how happy I am to express aloud some of my cherished recollections."

When Sister Therese Mary Foote wrote her first St. Catherine letter on August 5, 1980, she began her personal story with the above words.

Dorothy Marilyn Foote was born April 23, 1926, in Cleveland, Ohio, to Francis (“Frank”) and Florence Walsh Foote. She was the youngest of three children, after Bob, the oldest, and Jean. Frank came from a Protestant family, but as his relationship with Florence grew, “he chose to take instructions in order to learn more about a faith that could influence so beautiful a person as Mom,” Sister Therese Mary wrote. 

Sister Therese Mary called her father intelligent, sensitive, and ambitious, an excellent judge of character, and someone with a sense of humor and the ability to persevere. He was a traveling salesman until a comment from little Dorothy changed everything. When he was on the road, Dorothy got to sleep in her mother’s bed, but when he came home she had to forfeit her coveted spot – and was none too happy about it. At one point, she asked her mother, “Is that man coming home again?” and when Frank heard that his own child referred to him as “that man,” he knew it was time to stay home for good.

Read more about Sister Therese Mary (pdf)

(1932-2018)

“We met over the dough.”

That was what Sister Andrea Broutin’s parents used to tell her about the way they met. “For a long time I thought we had a lot of money,” she said in her life story. As it turned out, the reference to “dough” was literal – her father met her mother at the Detroit bakery where he worked.

Andre Broutin had come to Detroit from Belgium, while Helena De Munter was born in Gladstone, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. When Helena’s father died of throat cancer at an early age, her mother moved to Detroit with four of their twelve children and went into business for herself as a bar owner.

After Andre and Helena married, they made their home in St. Jude Parish on the east side of Detroit. Two children were born: Andrea, on March 1, 1932, and John, eight years later. Following Belgian custom, Andrea was named for her father. Her two middle names, Rose Marie, were in honor of her two grandmothers.

Andrea came into the family at the height of the Great Depression, and ironically enough considering her interpretation as a child of the word “dough,” her parents struggled to make ends meet. “But I never felt poor,” she said in her life story. “In my house we had a lot of love, a lot of plain, good food, and my mom was a delicious cook. My dad baked bread, cakes and pies, which he also did at work, so we were very fortunate.”

Andrea attended public schools throughout her elementary and secondary education. But her friends went to St. Jude School, and she made a habit of skipping school so she could go to morning Mass with them, after which they would go out for breakfast. “My Catholic friends had a lot of free days, like saints’ days, but I didn’t know all that stuff then,” she said. “I would just go with them to Mass and I loved it.”