(1935-2025)

Sister Rita Brunett, formerly known as Sister Raymond Cecile, died on Saturday, April 26, 2025, at the Dominican Life Center in Adrian, Michigan. She was 89 years of age and in the 73rd year of her religious profession in the Adrian Dominican Congregation.

Sister Rita was born in Detroit to Raymond and Cecilia (Gill) Brunett. She graduated from St. Joseph Academy in Adrian and received a bachelor’s degree in English from Siena Heights College (University) in Adrian and a master’s degree in counseling from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Sister ministered for 24 years in elementary education and two years in adult education in Chicago, Illinois; Detroit, Northville, and Wyandotte, Michigan; and Toledo, Ohio. She served as a hospital chaplain for one year in Norwich, Connecticut, and two years in Canton, Ohio. Sister ministered six years as the Associate Director for Family Life in the Diocese of Toledo, Ohio. She also served as the Nursing Service Coordinator at Maria Health Care Center (Dominican Life Center) and for more than four years as a pastoral minister in Livonia and Royal Oak, Michigan.

Sister Rita became a resident of the Dominican Life Center in 1994. She was preceded in death by six siblings: Raymond Brunett (Beverly), Most Rev. Alex J. Brunett (former Archbishop of Seattle), Michael Brunett (Juanita), Anne Brunett (former Adrian Dominican Sister), William Brunett (Joan deceased), and Grace Kassa (Jerry). She is survived by seven siblings: John Brunett (Patricia), Rose Philips (Armon) (former Adrian Dominican Sister), Jean Dawson (Richard), Mary Jennings (Edmun) (former Adrian Dominican Sister), Paul Brunett (Ann), Ruth Brunett, and Margaret Kassa (George deceased); other loving family; and her Adrian Dominican Sisters.

Visitation will be held from 6:30 to 7:00 p.m. on Monday, May 5, 2025, in the gathering space of St. Catherine Chapel. The Vigil Prayer will be held at 7:00 p.m. on Monday, May 5, 2025, in St. Catherine Chapel. A Funeral Mass will be offered in St. Catherine Chapel at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, May 6, 2025. Prayers of Committal will be held in the Congregation Cemetery.

Those not attending services in person are welcome to participate via livestream at https://adriandominicans.org/Live-Stream.

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.

 

Vigil and Funeral Recordings

Recording of Sister Rita'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 Rita's Funeral Mass - After clicking the link, download the recording by right-clicking on the video choosing "Save video as." Worship Aid (PDF)

 

LEFT TO RIGHT: Rita Mary in 1938, about 2 or 3 years old; Rita Mary, 4 years old; First Holy Communion, circa 1942; Graduating from St. Joseph Academy, 1950.

CENTER: Blood sisters, from left, Sisters Rita Margaret (Ann), Rita Gerald (Rose), Raymond Cecile (Rita), and Rita Michael (Mary), circa 1955. RIGHT: Sister Rita Brunett on Hat Day, September 1, 1995.

LEFT TO RIGHT: Sister Rita with her mother; Sister Rita Brunett and Associate Carol Jean Kaufman, a chaplain; Sister Rita with her friends, Simba and Pooh Bear

Members of the St. Philomena community are, from left, Sisters Mary Louise Gass, Norma Dell, Rita Brunett, Mary Kay Homan, and Nadine Sheehan.

Members of the 2011 Diamond Jubilee are: back row, from left, Sisters Attracta Kelly (Prioress), Julianne Wolny, Jeannine Holway, Anne Liam Lees, Judith Ann Lieder, and Agnes Peplinski; middle row, from left, Sisters Elizabeth Lynch, Rita Brunett, Thérèse M. Haggerty, Mary Daria Herbella, Catherine Ahern, and Elisa Joan Doherty; and front row, from left, Sisters Dolores Marie Dolan, Dolores Slosar, Nancy Hanna, Celine Marie Regan, Marian Edward Guethlein, and Clara Ann Budenz.

Leave your comments and remembrances – if you don't see the comment box below, click on the "Read More" link.

(1939-2025)

Over the course of time, the Adrian Dominican Sisters teaching at St. Kilian School on Chicago’s South Side had all seven of the Traut children – all of them girls – come through their classrooms. The three oldest of those girls went on to be educated by the Congregation at Aquinas Dominican High School, and one of those, Janet, went on to become an Adrian Dominican Sister after graduation.

Born on October 25, 1939, in Evergreen Park, Illinois, to James and Ethel (Heinrich) Traut, Janet was the third oldest child in the family. Her sisters were Marjorie, Kathryn, Linda, Judy, Susan, and Bernadette.

James was a Chicago police officer who rose to the rank of detective sergeant in the homicide bureau. “His views of the causes of poverty were far different than Janet’s after she taught in Detroit,” Judy wrote in a remembrance after Sister Janet’s death. “They had arguments many times and both got exasperated with each other. But it taught us there were many dimensions to social issues.”

Janet was in her senior year at Aquinas Dominican in 1957 when she wrote to Mother Gerald seeking entrance to the Congregation. She graduated from high school that June and arrived in Adrian late that same month.

Read more about Sister Janet (PDF)

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

Sister's Memorial Card (PDF)

Vigil and Funeral Recordings

Recording of Sister Janet's Memorial Mass - After clicking the link, download the recording by right-clicking on the video choosing "Save video as." Worship Aid (PDF)

Recording of Sister Janet's Ritual of Remembrance - After clicking the link, download the recording by right-clicking on the video choosing "Save video as."

Leave your comments and remembrances – if you don't see the comment box below, click on the "Read More" link.

 

(1928-2025)

For Sister Pauline Opliger, the path to becoming an Adrian Dominican Sister was a long and winding road.

Her father, Harry, was a Methodist minister originally from Millersburg, Ohio, while her mother, Della, an elementary schoolteacher at the time of their marriage, came from Lewiston, Nebraska. The two met and married in Glade, Kansas, where Harry was assigned.

Shortly after the wedding, Harry was transferred to a church in Rice, Kansas. The couple’s first three children were born in Rice: Pauline on March 2, 1928; Mark in 1930; and Lila in 1932.

Harry bought a small farm in north-central Kansas a few years later and left full-time ministry. It was a difficult time to be a Midwestern farmer; Sister Pauline wrote in her autobiography about her memories of massive dust storms and an invasion of grasshoppers that devoured the crops. Besides all that, “farming did not agree with my father,” she wrote, and he returned to full-time ministry and was assigned once again to Glade. Pauline’s youngest brother, Leland, entered the family there in 1939.

A couple of transfers later, the Opliger family was in Covert, Kansas, at the time of Pauline’s graduation from high school (in a class of four) in 1946. Wanting to save money to go to college and study art, she took summer classes in 1947 at Fort Hays State College in order to obtain a provisional teaching certificate, and that school year taught three elementary grades – containing a grand total of five students – in nearby Enterprise.

Read more about Sister Pauline (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)

 

 

Vigil and Funeral Recordings

Recording of Sister Pauline'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 Pauline'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.

 

(1936-2025)

Just a few days before Christmas 1936, on December 22 to be exact, Vincent and Mary (Montgomery) Manners of Detroit welcomed their first child into the world, a daughter born at home whom they named Margaret Ann.

Margaret, or Peggy as she was known, was joined four years later by a sister, Sharon, and two years after that by a brother, Paul. Vincent was in the U.S. Army during World War II, and so Mary and the children lived with Mary’s parents and Mary worked as an information clerk at the Michigan Central Depot near downtown Detroit. Vincent did not return to the family after the war.

Peggy’s elementary schooling took place in three parochial schools, but the majority of it was at St. Gabriel, where she and her siblings also attended high school. The Adrian Dominican Sisters teaching there had a huge impact on Peggy.

“They were excellent teachers and I enjoyed their classes,” she wrote in a short autobiography. “I loved their spirit. It was this that inspired me to become an Adrian Dominican Sister.”

Even so, it seems the decision did not come all that easily. In his remembrance of his oldest sister shared after her death, Paul recalled that Peggy had been dating a “very nice” young man in high school and came home from the prom in tears. “When I asked her what happened to make her so upset, she said, ‘Now I have to choose between marriage and becoming a sister,’” Paul said.

Read more about Sister Margaret "Peggy" (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)

Vigil and Funeral Recordings

Recording of Sister Margaret'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 Margaret'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.