(1926-2019)

A music lover, a reader, a puzzle-doer, someone who worked at living simply, and a woman who was faithful to prayer: this was how Sister Jane Irene Hutton was described after her death by Sister Rosemary Asaro, Holy Rosary Chapter Assistant, at Sister Jane Irene’s wake service.

Sister Jane Irene was born Irene Jane Hutton on October 31, 1926, in Chicago to William and Irene (Beck) Hutton. Bill, as he was called, was a Chicago native who worked as a certified public accountant, first for the Chicago World’s Fair and then for the largest bank in the city at the time, the Northern Trust Company.

“I remember how hard he worked and provided for the family. … He would work as a cashier during the day and audit the books after the bank closed,” Sister Jane Irene said in her life story. “He would get home very late each night but I can still see my mother sitting near the window looking for him to be coming up the street so she could have a hot meal ready when he walked in the door.”

Irene, for her part, was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, of French parents who had come to the United States before World War I. She worked as a nurse in a doctor’s office when she first came to Chicago, before she married Bill. “She was a gentle person and a wonderful cook,” Sister Jane Irene said of her mother. “All our meals were great family affairs.”

Read more about Sister Jane Irene (pdf)

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

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