(1945-2017)

When she returned to Adrian on November 18, 2016, to live out whatever remaining time God had given her on Earth, Sister Romona Nowak proclaimed herself there to work on her Ph.D: “Praying for a Happy Death.”

Sister Romona turned those weeks and months of facing incurable cancer into a ministry to others, regularly posting meditations on her experience to the Adrian listserv. “Romona epitomized Henry Nouwen’s Wounded Healer. She beautifully and consistently ministered out of her own vulnerability,” said Sister Mary Jane Lubinski, OP, Sister Romona’s Chapter Prioress, at the Ritual of Remembering held after Sister Romona’s death. “Few of us would tell our story so boldly, speak of death and hold open the wound so that others may gain strength. She is a model and a preacher…”

Born on July 19, 1945, in Chicago to Lucian and Jeanette Wysocki Nowak, Sister Romona and her brother, Robert, grew up in difficult circumstances. According to the stories that her chaplain at the Dominican Life Center, Rev. Cathy Johnson, set down in a biography, Lucian was a hardworking baker, and there was tension in the home made worse by the fact that her mother was hospitalized for depression. “Mona learned to play the piano and this offered her freedom of expression which she found helpful,” her biography read. According to her application for admittance to the Congregation, she also played the accordion.

Sister Romona attended elementary school at St. Mary Magdalene and then went to Aquinas Dominican High, during which time she worked in a shoe store and as a waitress, among other things. After earning her diploma, she enrolled at Siena Heights College, and it was there, during a retreat, that she was introduced to the writings of Teilhard de Chardin. According to her biography, she “experienced a oneness with God and with earth. And this was when she knew she wanted to become a nun as a way to live her thank-you to God.”

Read more about Sister Romona (pdf)

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

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(1941-2017)

“A woman of generosity and gratitude, a lover of children, cats, and life.”

That was how Sister Mary Jane Lubinski, OP, Adrian Crossroads Chapter Prioress, remembered Sister Patricia (almost always known as simply “Pat”) Janowicz at the Vigil Service held after Sister Pat’s death.

Sister Pat was born on May 27, 1941, in Wyandotte (Michigan) General Hospital, the only child of Sigmund and Frances (Lisek) Janowicz. All four of her grandparents were Polish, and she grew up surrounded by rich Polish traditions. Pat remembered in her autobiography that she called her grandparents either the “Wyandotte grandma and grandpa” (her mother’s parents) or the “Detroit grandma and grandpa” (her father’s parents) so as to distinguish which set she was going to visit.

When Sister Pat was very small, the family moved from an apartment to a small house in Dearborn, Michigan, and from there, in 1945, to a larger home on Detroit’s northwest side. Sigmund worked as a truck driver, hauling sand to make concrete, and as a little girl, Sister Pat, a self-described tomboy, played not with dolls but with toy trucks and sand.

Read more about Sister Pat (pdf)

Memorial gifts may be made to Adrian Dominican Sisters, 1257 East Siena Heights Drive, Adrian, Michigan, 49221. Funeral arrangements are being handled by Anderson-Marry Funeral Home, Adrian.

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(1934-2017)

Praise the Beloved; Praise be to You in Earth’s sanctuary;
Praise be to You in the mighty firmament.
Give praise with trumpets; give praise with lute and harp.
Give praise with strings and reed.
Give praise with booming drums; give praise with clashing cymbals.
Let everything that breathes praise the Beloved in their lives.

Sister Mary Ann Caulfield, Prioress of the Florida Mission Chapter, used this Scripture passage, Psalm 150, at the Vigil Service for Sister Dolores Daehn to evoke the longtime music teacher’s “love of music and her tenacious spirit.” 

Dolores was born on August 7, 1934, in Chicago, Illinois, the only child of Robert and Lucy (Stoute) Daehn. Robert had no religious affiliation at all and Lucy was a Lutheran.

Lucy died when Dolores was just three years old, and the little girl lived with her grandparents, who although they were not Catholic (and in fact were opposed to the Catholic faith) sent her to parochial school from first grade on and then to Aquinas High School.

Read more about Sister Dolores (pdf)

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

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(1927 - 2017)

For some time I have thought and prayed that I had a vocation to the religious life. With the advice of my spiritual director and confessor, I was introduced to Sister Alice Joseph and her faculty at St. Brendan’s. Their simplicity and naturalness overpowered me completely.

So begins the letter which twenty-two-year-old Mildred Fogarty of San Francisco wrote to Mother Gerald Barry in late 1949, asking to make application to join the Adrian Dominican Sisters. Mildred, who had just completed her California nursing exams, had been educated by the Sisters of St. Joseph in high school (Star of the Sea) and by the Sisters of Mercy at St. Mary’s College of Nursing, but as her letter indicates it was through her home parish, St. Brendan’s, that she got to know the Adrian Dominicans and knew which congregation she wished to enter.

Mildred Rita Fogarty was born December 18, 1927, in San Francisco to Clifton and Mildred (Ward) Fogarty. Clifton worked for the W.A. Grace Steamship Line and Mildred was a homemaker. The couple also had a son, Eugene.

When Mildred Rita was just ten years old, her mother died; when she was twelve, her father married Rose Margaret McGreevey, and by all accounts stepmother and stepdaughter developed a very close relationship.

Mildred Rita entered the Congregation on February 1, 1950, and became a novice that August, taking the religious name Sister Joseph Eugene. She made first profession on August 9, 1951. With her nurse’s training, it was only logical that her first appointment would be to one of the Congregation’s hospitals, and she was sent to Sisters Hospital, Santa Cruz, California.

Read more about Sister Joseph Eugene (pdf)

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