(1925-2023)

Once upon a time in a Barry University newspaper, “The Flame,” the writer noted Sister Margaret Mary McGill blushed at the suggestion that she was an educational trailblazer. However, given her accomplishments, she was indeed a trailblazer, always open to new challenges, preparing herself to meet them, and she rarely shied away from anything.

Sister Judy Friedel, Chapter Prioress of the Holy Rosary Chapter, said this in her eulogy for Sister Margaret Mary McGill after summarizing Sister’s many years of service as a teacher, school administrator, paralegal specializing in immigration issues, literacy center director, and Peace Corps volunteer. These ministries and her studies took Sister Margaret Mary to several U.S. states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, and Hungary.

She was born in Rhode Island on November 12, 1925, to John and Agnes (Acorn) McGill. Little is known about her younger years other than that she had an older brother named Robert and two younger sisters, Virginia (known as Hope) and Dorothy, and that the children took turns living with their divorced parents.

Her first teachers were the Mercy Sisters at St. Joseph School in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. After elementary school she briefly attended Pawtucket East High School, but then went to live with her mother in Florida and completed her high school education at St. Ann School in West Palm Beach. The Adrian Dominican Sisters who made up the faculty there inspired her to religious life, and she entered the Congregation in 1944 right after graduation.

Learn more about Sister Margaret Mary (PDF)

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

 

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