(1938-2022)

A fortuitous move from Beloit, Wisconsin, to Rockford, Illinois, brought Teresa Josephine Disch to the place where she would eventually meet the Adrian Dominican Sisters.

Teresa was born on March 17, 1938, in Beloit to Casper and Josephine (Finnegan) Disch. At some point after her birth, the little family moved to Rockford because Casper’s employer had transferred him there. Three more children would in time be born to the couple: Richard in 1939, Rita in 1941, and Robert in 1947.

“My relationship with my parents was very good,” Sister Teresa wrote in her autobiography. “I experienced love, trust and encouragement. They challenged me to do my best and assume responsibility within and beyond our household.”

Her elementary schooling came from the Sisters of Loretto at St. Peter School. High school was spent at Bishop Muldoon High School, where she had the Adrian Dominican Sisters as her teachers and enjoyed many opportunities for leadership development.

Read more about Sister Teresa (PDF)

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

 

 

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(1939-2022)

In her eulogy for Sister Helen McAllister, Sister Judy Friedel, Chapter Prioress of the Holy Rosary Mission Chapter, described Sister Helen this way:

Helen was a people-person, a devoted family member, a dedicated teacher and co-worker, a committed family member, friend to many. The four pillars of Dominican life were foundational to her growth as a person. Her life was lived fully, remaining close to family and friends, with a very tender heart for God’s little ones. She loved people, parties, travel.

Helen Diana McAllister was born on March 11, 1939, at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park, Illinois. She was the first child born to Thomas McAllister, who worked as a clerk for the Chicago Stock Exchange, and his wife, Margaret Helen (Paschke).

The family lived in Little Flower Parish, on Chicago’s South Side, until 1941, not long after another daughter, Judy, was born. They then moved to an apartment on South Yale, across the street from St. Carthage Church and School. In time, three more children – Rosemary, Dennis, and Susan – entered the family.

Helen attended Yale Public School for kindergarten and half of first grade and then was enrolled at St. Carthage School. It was here that she first met the Adrian Dominican Sisters, initially in the person of Sister Catherine Siena Fisher, her first-grade teacher. “She was very strict; in fact, I think I was a bit afraid of her,” Sister Helen said in her life story as she recounted the time she got in trouble for talking with her best friend and did not tell her mother about it … only to have both her parents find out from Sister Catherine Siena that same day at an open house.

Read more about Sister Helen (PDF)

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

 

 

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(1930-2022)

As I look back, I hear my mother’s quote: “There are many things I can’t do anymore, but I never regret that; I just look back and thank God that I had them and enjoyed them when I did.” My prayer is often a prayer of thanksgiving for all the gifts I have experienced during my life.

These words come near the end of an addition to her life story that Sister Mary Louise Gass wrote, dated “2-22-22, 72nd anniversary of my entrance” into the Congregation.

Mary Louise was born on June 20, 1930, to Gerald and Cecelia (Sack) Gass. She was the couple’s youngest child, following Dolores, seven years older; Gerald Jr., five years older; and Barbara, three years older.

Gerald and Cecelia met in Adrian, where both worked for the Adrian Fence Company although they did not actually meet at work; they met at a Knights of Columbus convention held at St. Joseph Parish. Some of the parish’s young women who were there to serve meals took pictures of the young men attending, and Cecelia took Gerald’s picture and he gave her his address so he could get a print. 

The couple married in Adrian in 1922 and settled in Wyandotte, Michigan, in a home Gerald built next to his mother’s dry goods store. The store later became a dry cleaner which Gerald and a partner operated, and Mary Louise, a self-described tomboy who liked working in her father’s shop more than she liked doing housework, often waited on customers, sorted clothes, and even did some bookkeeping.

Growing up during the Depression years meant hand-me-down clothes and “enough to eat but nothing to waste,” Sister Mary Louise wrote. It was a loving family; Gerald and Cecelia always made time to attend their children’s various plays, recitals, and sporting events, and Dolores, who became a nurse, bought Mary Louise a lavender sweater out of her first paycheck “just because she wanted to.” Still, “law and order” was the rule, especially around the home, school, and church; Sister Mary Louise wrote that because she had spent her early years obeying, she later found the strictness of the postulate and novitiate somewhat easy.

All four of the Gass children attended St. Joseph School in Wyandotte, which was staffed by the Adrian Dominican Sisters. It was here that she discovered her love for mathematics thanks to Sister Michael Ann Glombowski; in her life story, she wrote about the pivotal moment, which came in sixth or seventh grade when the class was asked to solve “3/4 times 12” and she discovered that when a number is multiplied by less than one the answer is smaller than the original number.

Read more about Sister Mary Louise (PDF)

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

 

 

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(1933-2022)

With her birth on March 3, 1933, Mary Catherine Nolan became the second of what would eventually be five children born to John David and Leona Marie (Caron) Nolan. She was born after brother John David Jr. and before Joe, who was four years younger, and twins Judy and James, nine years younger and whom she often looked after.

The children grew up in two very different worlds: the South Side of Chicago, where the family lived, and their maternal grandparents’ farm in Minnesota. Leona came from a French Canadian family that had immigrated to Minnesota after purchasing the property thanks to the Homestead Act, and the Nolan children spent summers at the farm, which had no indoor plumbing, heat, or electricity – a far cry from their very urban regular life.

Mary Catherine’s elementary-school years were spent at St. Felicitas School, where she was taught by the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) Sisters. When it came time for high school, a dispute arose between her and her mother: she wanted to attend Aquinas Dominican High because her friends were going there, whereas her mother, who had a great-aunt who was a Mercy Sister, wanted her to go to Mercy High School. Leona thought the Aquinas girls were “social butterflies” whereas the Mercy girls were known for their academics.

According to the story Sister Mary Catherine told in her February 2018 “A Sister’s Story” video, she ran upstairs to her room, knelt by her bed, and opened her eighth-grade religion book coincidentally to a picture of St. Albertus Magnus in his Dominican habit. She told St. Albertus she wanted to go to Aquinas and asked for his help, and shortly thereafter her mother came to the stairs and called up to her that if she wanted to go to Aquinas she could, but she had to keep her grades up.

Read more about Sister Mary Catherine (PDF)

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

 

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