(1942-2022)

On April 29 – appropriately, the feast day of St. Catherine of Siena – in 1942, Gordon and Margaret (Ryan) Erickson of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, welcomed their first child, whom they named Patricia Laverne, into the world.

At the time, the Ericksons lived in an apartment so small that there was no room for a crib, so baby Patricia’s bed was in a bottom dresser drawer. “To this day, my family has blamed my smallness of stature on this fact!” she joked in her autobiography.

Two more children came into the family over time: Michael, born when Patricia was five, and Nancy five years after that. A job transfer for Gordon took the Ericksons to Grosse Pointe, Michigan, when Patricia was in seventh grade, and it was at her new school there, St. Ambrose, where she met the Adrian Dominican Sisters.

“She walked into her classroom and KNEW that she would become an Adrian Dominican, and never let go of that dream,” said Sister Mary Priniski, Chapter Prioress of the Catherine of Siena Mission Chapter, in her eulogy for Sister Patricia. “In the eighth grade she asked her dad if she could join the convent, but he insisted she finish high school first.”

Read more about Sister Pat (PDF) 

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

 

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