(1936-2017)

When Sister Mary Ann Zakrajsek’s family and her fellow Adrian Dominican Sisters filed into Holy Rosary Chapel over the course of two days for her Vigil service and then funeral, they were greeted by a print placed prominently on an easel next to the ambo.

The print, which Sister Mary Ann had brought with her when she returned to Adrian from Cleveland, Ohio, just one month earlier, was of a painting by Christian artist Joann Reed titled, “Come Unto Me.” With its depiction of Christ’s arms reaching toward the viewer, it sustained Sister Mary Ann in life and through her last days.

Sister Mary Ann was born in Cleveland on January 10, 1936, to Matt and Antonia Perko Zakrajsek, both immigrants from Slovenia, in Yugoslavia. Matt worked for the Cleveland Wire Cloth and Manufacturing Company, while Antonia took care of home and family.

The Perkos had eleven children in all, three of whom died in early childhood. Sister Mary Ann was a twin to Richard, and her birth was apparently a source of great excitement, given that the other surviving children in the family at that point were all boys. At Sister Mary Ann’s Vigil service, her Chapter Prioress, Sister Mary Jane Lubinski, related a memory told to her by Sister Mary Ann’s cousin, Adrian Dominican Sister Miriam Joseph Lekan, who was thirteen at the time of Mary Ann’s birth: “Older brothers came running down the street announcing ‘We have twins! And one of them is a girl!’”

Read more about Sister Mary Ann (PDF)

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

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