(1935-2023)

Eugene McAuliffe was visiting his brother in a Spokane, Washington, hospital when he encountered the lady who would soon become his wife, Sally Milnor, the daughter of a ship’s captain who often took his children along on his seafaring adventures. The couple settled in Spokane after their marriage, and on January 12, 1935, their first child, Virginia Kathryn, the future Sister Rosaire, entered the world.

Just a few months later, with the Great Depression at its height, the Works Progress Administration was established, and Gene became part of the crew that built the Grand Coulee Dam. He moved his wife and baby daughter to a town built for the workers called Coulee City, and it was there that two more children, James and Sally, came into the family.

In 1940, with work slowing on the dam, the McAuliffes moved to Snohomish, Washington, where Gene worked as a construction supervisor, and the family grew by two: Patricia and Michael. Then, as the United States entered World War II in 1942, Gene took advantage of the booming shipbuilding industry and moved the family once again, this time to Bremerton, Washington.

Virginia attended elementary school at Our Lady Star of the Sea School in Bremerton and then went to high school at Holy Angels Academy in Seattle, where the Everett Dominican Sisters (later to become the Edmonds Dominican Sisters) were her teachers. She entered the Everett congregation after graduating from Holy Angels in 1953 and was received as a novice in June 1954, with the religious name Sister Rosaire.

Read more about Sister Rosaire (PDF)

 

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

 

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