(1935-2023)

My life has been amazingly graced by the excitement of call, the love of community and the fulfillment of mission. It has been blessed beyond anything that I could have imagined or hoped for. I could not ask for more. 

Sister Mary Kathryn Cliatt, known simply by her middle name Sister Kathryn, wrote those words while reflecting on her life’s journey, a journey that began on January 27, 1935, in Miami, Florida. 

Kathryn was the oldest child of James and Thelma (Barfield) Cliatt, with her sister Martha following five years later. Neither James, a police officer, nor Thelma was actively practicing Catholics, but they nonetheless were deeply spiritual, prayerful people, and Kathryn’s own spiritual journey was shaped by them. She wrote in her autobiography that her mother would rise early in the morning to pray before awakening the children, and her father knelt in prayer at his bedside before retiring. 

“When I was five I had my first experience of Divine presence,” she wrote. 

In my bedroom, I sensed the Presence of what, even in my child’s heart, I knew to be Divine. I also understood I could not talk about it, for I had no words to capture the essence of this. This experience was profoundly formative and initiated my lifelong search for intimacy with the Divine. 

Soon thereafter, she began attending Sunday school and church with her friends, which, over time, led her to experience a variety of denominations and, in college, to become a Catholic.

Read more about Sister Kathryn (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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(1926-2023)

I did all that I could do, and put my trust in God. I had some difficult times and some pleasant times and that’s life. Just remember that I lived. I think I am an ordinary person trying to do what God is directing me to do. Sometimes I fail and sometimes I succeed, and I am trusting in His mercy.

This was part of Sister Joan Murphy’s response when, for her life story, she was asked how she wished to be remembered. She also said she expected she would live to be eighty-eight, but she outlasted that guess by more than a few years: she was ninety-seven, and in her seventy-seventh year of religious profession, when she went home to her God on July 28, 2023.

Sister Joan was born on July 10, 1926, in the Detroit enclave of Highland Park, Michigan, and baptized Joan Eileen. Her parents, Patrick Joseph and Margaret Marie (Hanlon) Murphy, both came to the United States from County Kerry, Ireland, within just a couple of years of each other. Patrick stayed in New York for a short while, working on the docks, but he found the work very difficult and within a week or two went to Chicago because his brothers and sisters had already emigrated there. He later moved to Detroit looking for work and found a job first with the Dodge automobile plant and then with the Ford Motor Company, working in security. It was a good, steady job, even through the difficult Depression years.

Patrick was likely at least somewhat acquainted with his future wife long before they married, as he had known her brother Jerry in Ireland and, once he moved to Detroit, lived with Jerry there for a time. As the story went, he attended an Irish dance in downtown Detroit, saw Margaret – who had come to the dance with another man, one Mr. Hogan – and when Mr. Hogan told Patrick, “That’s the girl I brought,” Patrick told him, “Maybe that’s the girl you brought, but that’s the girl I’m going to marry.”

Read more about Sister Joan (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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(1930-2023)

April 5, 1930, was surely a joyful day in the Detroit home of Peter Paul and Alice Irene (Tate) Persyk, for it was on this date that the couple welcomed a baby girl, whom they named Janet Mae, into the world after Alice had had seven miscarriages.

Both Peter and Alice were born on family farms in Minnesota. In her “Sister’s Story” video of January 24, 2017, Sister Janet explained that Peter’s family came from Prussia and Austria and emigrated to the United States in 1870 to escape the Franco-Prussian War. The family, not wanting to be discovered by Prussian agents, changed their name from their original German name. The family settled in a farming community named Perham, so they took the “Per” and added an “szyk” to sound Slavic instead of German.

Sister Janet went on to explain that although her father eventually dropped the “z” out of their name, it was spelled “Perszyk” on her birth certificate. When she went to work at the age of 15 and filled out the required Social Security paperwork, she was unaware of that spelling and spelled it without the “z.”

“When I came home, they said, “‘Well, that’s not how you spell our name,’” she said.

Peter and Alice met in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, at a hospital where Alice was a second-year nursing student and Peter was an accountant. The couple married in 1922 and moved to Detroit in 1928 because job prospects there were promising for accountants. Peter became the general manager for the Gordon-Pagel Baking Co., which counted Silvercup Bread among its products. That was the brand whose sponsorship of the radio show “The Lone Ranger” led to the Lone Ranger’s horse’s name being changed from Dusty to Silver.

Read more about Sister Janet (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).

(1928-2023)

Jeri’s life can be characterized as one of generosity, one of abundance, and one of trust. But perhaps, most importantly, Jeri would describe her life as joy-filled. She rejoiced in deep friendships with myriads of people.

… Time spent with Jeri -- socializing with her, studying with her, or engaging in discussions with her – was always enjoyable. Jeri was God’s gift of delight to our world, and I am grateful for the privilege of knowing her and experiencing the blessing that she was to us.

Sister Karen Rossman included these paragraphs in her funeral homily for Sister Jeri Renner, who had been part of the Edmonds Dominican Congregation and then the Adrian Dominican Congregation for some seventy-six years when she died on July 5, 2023.

Sister Jerome Mary Renner, known to all as Sister Jeri, was born Agnes Theresa Renner on October 22, 1928, on the family farm near Dimock, South Dakota. She was the youngest of six children born to Joseph and Elizabeth (Triebal) Renner, the others being Josephine, Elsie, Marie, Helen, and Leonard. Joseph had emigrated to the United States from Austria, as had Elizabeth’s parents, and the children primarily spoke German until they started school.

The siblings came in two sets of three, with five years separating the older group from the younger group. Helen and Leonard often tried to get their little sister to take one or the other’s side if there was a disagreement, and “in my indecision, I would squeak,” Sister Jeri wrote in her autobiography. It earned her the lifelong nickname of Squeaker.

Read more about Sister Jeri (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).