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(1929-2021)
Among the many youngsters who experienced World War II in an up close and personal way were the six children of Patrick and Margaret (McKeigue) Nugent, one of whom went on to become our Sister Mary Nugent.
Patrick and Margaret were both Irish immigrants to Chicago in the early 1920s, with Patrick coming from Dublin and Margaret from Galway. They married in Chicago in 1926 and soon had a son, Richard, who died of pneumonia at just six weeks of age. Over time, six girls followed; Mary Therese, the oldest, was born on May 10, 1929.
The family moved to England in 1936 after Mary finished first grade, because Patrick, who worked for Philco Radio, was sent there to learn from the British engineers who were developing the then-new technology of television. Three girls were in the family at the time: Mary, Pat, and Eleanor.
What Patrick and Margaret hadn’t planned on when they and the children set off on their overseas adventure, of course, was World War II. The family moved from England to Ireland to be near their relatives literally just as the war broke out in 1939. The ship they were on arrived in Dublin just as Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s announcement that war had been declared on Germany was being broadcast over the ship’s P.A. system.
“I was ten years old,” Sister Mary wrote in her autobiography. “I didn’t realize all the implications of those words, but I did notice that my mother, standing next to me, was crying. I don’t think I had ever seen her cry before.”
Read more about Sister Mary (PDF)
Memorial gifts may be made to Adrian Dominican Sisters, 1257 East Siena Heights Drive, Adrian, Michigan, 49221.
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(1934-2021)
Anne knew the Word in Scripture and she knew Jesus the Word. In our Gospel from John [14:1-7] we heard Jesus’ tender, reassuring words to the anxious disciples in his farewell message to them: “Do not be troubled, trust in God and in me. I am going to prepare a place for you so that we will be together again. I am the Way – the only way to my Abba God. I am the Truth – a teacher in the spirit of truth. And I am the Life – to know Abba present in me is eternal life.”
Anne followed the Way, seeking truth, and lived life in Jesus through love. As another one of our sisters said of her: “Anne believed that love is necessary for survival – her survival and the lives of the people she touched, many of whom lived in survival mode.”
This passage is from Sister Carleen Maly’s funeral homily for Sister Anne Elizabeth Monahan, who in the course of her seventy-one years as an Adrian Dominican Sister, ministered to countless children and adults as a teacher, principal, and literacy center tutor.
Sister Anne was born on August 23, 1934, in Clinton, Massachusetts, to George and Mary (Langen) Monahan. She was the first of three daughters, followed by Mary and Faye.
When she was eleven years old the family moved to Florida, and it was here that she first came into contact with the Adrian Dominican Sisters; after a year of public school in Stuart, she enrolled at St. Ann School in West Palm Beach for her eighth grade year.
Read more about Sister Anne Elizabeth (PDF)
(1935-2021)
The melting pot that was Detroit in the early decades of the 20th Century may have no better examples than Helen Simon and Matthew Mayer. Helen was born in Hattingen, Germany, in 1907, and came with her family to Detroit in the 1920s. Matthew was born in Milltown, New Jersey, in 1908 to Yugoslavian parents who returned to their homeland shortly after his birth, but then emigrated once more to the U.S. after World War I. After living first in Washington State and then in California, the family came to Detroit because there was work there.
Helen and Matthew, a sheet metal worker who eventually owned his own business, met at a dance and married in July 1930. Five years later, on July 17, 1935 – Helen’s birthday – the couple welcomed a daughter, Eleanor Therese. Their son, Matthew, followed two years later.
With the help of friends, the Mayers weathered the Depression, and when Eleanor was four years old the little family was able to move into a home that her father built on Somerset Avenue on Detroit’s east side. Eleanor went to kindergarten at Arthur Elementary School. Since she spoke mostly German at home, school was a tearful experience for several weeks until she got more comfortable with English. But she loved school, and that love for learning continued throughout her early life.
Read more about Sister Helen Therese (pdf)
Sister's Prayer Card (PDF)
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)
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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