(1933-2023)

On September 10, 1933, a group of children ranging in age from two to thirteen marched down the block in their Crystal Lake, Illinois, neighborhood, carrying a sign referring not to the National Recovery Act that had recently come into being but to a more personally momentous event. The sign read “NRA: ’Nother Riley Arrived.”

That “’ Nother Riley” was Helen Virginia, the future Sister Maria Riley. She was the eighth and final child of William and Helen (McCullough) Riley, joining siblings William, Mary Jane, Fred, Bob, Phil, Jim, and Tom.

All the children attended St. Thomas the Apostle School in Crystal Lake, which the Springfield Dominican Sisters staffed. Apparently, the Springfield Sisters had their eyes on Helen right from the start; Sister Maria wrote in her autobiography – which she titled “A Life Worth Living” – that, according to legend, when she was baptized, she was taken up to the altar of the Blessed Mother by Sister (later Mother) Mary Imelda Sudden of the Springfield congregation. Sister Imelda “prayed that I would become a Dominican,” Sister Maria wrote. “She just forgot to mention which kind.”

Helen’s Adrian Dominican connection was sealed when she enrolled for her high school education at Mount St. Mary Academy in St. Charles, Illinois. After graduating from “the Mount” in 1951, she went on to Barry College (University) in Miami, Florida. She had been there less than one academic year when she began making arrangements to enter the Congregation.

Read more about Sister Maria (PDF)
 

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

Sister's Memorial Card (PDF)

 

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(1938-2023)

“There are three characteristics I remember as a child that permeated [the] two Italian families from which I have my roots: living in poverty, love of God, and love for one another.”

Sister Mary Catherine Gagliano’s autobiography begins with a summation of the backgrounds of her parents, both of whom were the children of Sicilian immigrants. Alex, her father, was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where his parents had settled and opened a strawberry farm. Her mother, Genevieve, was born in Beloit, Wisconsin; a few years later, her family moved to Freeport, Illinois.

When Alex was nineteen, he, his mother, and his uncle took a riverboat up the Mississippi River in search of a better place for the family to live and somehow ended up in Rockford, Illinois. Twelve years later, at a dance, he met Genevieve, who had come from Freeport to Rockford to visit her sister and brother-in-law. Genevieve was nineteen and Alex was thirty-one, which led both sets of parents to oppose their marriage, but the couple was sure their love would withstand the difference in their ages, and they turned out to be right.

Read more about Sister Mary Catherine (PDF).

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

Sister's Memorial Card (PDF)

 

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(1937-2023)

Sister Maria Caridad has been looking directly at me every day from the intercessor card I received last winter to remind me to pray for her especially during this year. In her picture, she has a beautiful smile and a lovely bright pink blouse. Those who knew her best have shared with those who didn’t have that opportunity that she brought brightness in her manner and colorful dress, graciousness and peace in community life, and joyful and competent service to those she taught and tended to in pastoral ministry.

Sister Carol Gross’ homily for the funeral of Sister Maria Caridad Pinuela began with this paragraph describing a woman who, before being seriously impacted by a stroke in 2002, had long been a model of gracious hospitality and compassion in all her ministries.

Guillerma (the future Sister Maria Caridad) Pinuela was born on April 4, 1937, in Zarraga, Iloilo, Philippines, to Juan and Mercedes (Sendino) Pinuela. She was one of four siblings, along with two brothers, Wilfrido and Rogelio, and a sister, Flocerida. Juan died when Guillerma was quite young, so she unfortunately never really got to know him.

She attended Zarraga School and then Sacred Heart Academy and was very active in Catholic Action, Girl Scouts, and the Red Cross and served as a coordinator with the 4-H Club. Right after graduating from Sacred Heart in June 1955, she entered the Dominican Sisters of the Most Holy Rosary in Molo, Iloilo City, Philippines.

Read more about Sister Maria Caridad (PDF).

 

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

 

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(1934-2023)

Marlene Ann Kuhnlein entered the world at just six and a half months’ gestation on March 2, 1934, and spent the first three weeks of her life in an incubator at Lewis Memorial Maternity Hospital in Chicago. She was the only child of Anthony and Irene (Lowen) Kuhnlein, who lived in the Jackson Park area of Chicago’s South Side.
 
Tony and Irene officially met at a dance in Chicago, although they may have crossed paths earlier since there was a very distant family relationship. Tony worked as a streetcar conductor and, in his younger days, played baseball for the Chicago White Sox, while before their marriage, Irene was a telephone operator. 
 
When Tony was a youngster, he was hit in the head with a baseball, and as an adult, a streetcar accident gave him another head injury. This led to seizures, which ultimately proved fatal; he died in 1937 at the age of thirty-three, when Marlene was just three years old.
 
“Naturally, I have regretted never really knowing my father,” Sister Marlene wrote in her autobiography. “I have always believed that my vocation was a gift that God bestowed on me due to my father’s prayers for me before His throne.”

Read more about Sister Marlene (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).