Sister Elizabeth Kubacki
1935-2011

Sister Elizabeth Kubacki was more familiarly known as Betty. Sister Mary Margaret Priniski described her as “a woman who made friends for life, who shared her soul through art, a woman of great love, and a woman of faith and commitment.”

The daughter of Edward and Anna (Peruski) Kubacki and the youngest of their four children, Betty was born on June 27, 1935, in Detroit. She grew up with three sisters: Bernice, Mary Jane, and Anna Mae. It is interesting to note that Anna Kubacki always arranged her youngest daughter’s hair in pigtails, making ringlets by tying the hair in rags. Whether she did the same for her three older daughters we are not told.

Both parents were of Polish ancestry and from the Thumb of Michigan. Edward Kubacki was from Parisville and Anna Peruski from Ubly. Both were raised on large farms and came from large families. One parent came from a family of fifteen children, and the other from a family of thirteen. Both were strong Catholics. Edward Kubacki became a fireman and, after his marriage, provided a good life for his family.

When Betty was about two years old, her mother was afflicted with a nervous condition, and Betty was given into the care of her father’s sister and her husband. She remained with them for over a year, and this period of her life left her with feelings of insecurity and a fear of rejection. When it was time for school in 1941, Betty attended Assumption Grotto Grade School. In the beginning she disliked school. She missed forty days of first grade because she would leave the classroom and run back home, becoming good at hiding. Her parents and sisters tried to get her to stay in school but did not succeed. This, she later felt, was the result of her insecurity and fear that if she were away very long she would find her mother gone. She continued school, began to stay for the required time, and, no doubt, grew to like it better. She finished eighth grade in 1949. On the whole, her childhood was a happy one, with part of the summers spent on relatives’ farms.

Betty’s secondary years were spent at Dominican High School. There she made many friends and met the Adrian Dominican Sisters. To her surprise, she was elected senior class president. In her file is an unidentified Catholic newspaper picture and article showing her “passing the torch.” She graduated in June 1953 and on June 27, her eighteenth birthday, she and a group of her friends were on their way to Adrian to become postulants. Betty had a cousin who was a Franciscan Sister, and a priest cousin, Rev. Eugene Susalla, so her attraction to religious life is not too surprising.

With her group, she received the habit and her religious name on December 30, 1953. Until the 1970s Betty was known as Sister Dominic Mary. A year later, on December 31, 1954, she and her group professed their first vows. Within a very short time, Sister Betty was on her way to Chicago, where she taught on the junior high level at St. Clare School until 1962. She taught history on the junior high level for most of her teaching ministry. The death of her father in 1956 was a sad occasion for her. A happier one occurred in August 1962, when, as a result of summer study, she received a bachelor’s degree from Siena Heights College (now University) in Adrian, with a major in history and minors in English and sociology.

In 1962, she was changed to St. Carthage, also in Chicago, where she taught for a year. In 1963 she was assigned to St. Joseph in Homewood, Illinois, where she remained for seven years. A story is told about her humor in the classroom: One of her assignments in American History included the question, “What was the last thing George Washington said to his men before they crossed the Delaware?” The students could not find the answer. When they came to class with no results, Sister Betty told them that the assignment was a joke, that she thought Washington said, “Okay, men, into the boats!” This must have caused some hilarity. That her students admired and revered her is shown by the letter that one of them wrote to her, saying:

Your example of patience, kindness, and understanding is what influenced me to be a teacher. I spoke about this to others and in my college classes. The good example you showed rubbed off on me, and I hope it will influence the children I’m teaching.

Sister Betty returned to Michigan in 1970, where she spent four years at St. Margaret in Saint Clair Shores and a year at St. Jude in Detroit, teaching sixth grade at both schools. She lost her mother in 1972. Also in 1972, again as a result of summer study, Loyola University in Chicago awarded her a master’s degree in history.

During the summer of 1974, Sister Betty studied at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and earned several hours of credit in clinical pastoral education. For the year 1975-76 she ministered at a retreat house, Crosier House in Fort Wayne, Indiana, as secretary and retreat assistant. From 1976 on she was again in Michigan. She returned to the classroom, and ministered for ten years at Our Lady of Victory School in Northville, mostly on the junior high level.

Sister Betty was artistically talented, and very much interested in that field. It was her dream to use art in her ministry. In 1986, she requested permission to study and prepare herself to minister in art. She was given permission to do so, and in 1986 she began a two-year study of art therapy at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, that resulted in a second master’s degree.

When she finished her degree in art therapy, she found a position as an art therapist in the psychiatric critical care unit at St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Dayton. She held this position for eight years, during which she became a member of the American Art Therapy Association. One of the patients wrote, “I couldn’t have had better care than this unit provided. I can’t say enough about the kindness and love I was shown, and Sister Betty’s art therapy was just fantastic.” In her yearly reviews she was affirmed for her excellent collaboration with co-workers and the compassion that she evidenced in working with the mentally ill in-patient adults. In 1994, she became a member of the Guild of the Golden Quill Organization, a group of calligraphers who met monthly. Her work in calligraphy “nourished her whole person.”

In 1996, St. Elizabeth Medical Center changed its name to the Franciscan Medical Center. In her 1999 annals, Sister Betty mentioned the financial and other problems that the hospital was experiencing. “The Sisters of St. Francis of the Poor are divesting themselves of ownership of their hospitals, and the Medical Center is in the process of being ‘looked at’ for purchase.” The hospital closed in 2000. In the summer that followed, Sister Betty visited the Lands of Dominic, a visit that she enjoyed and from which she learned much.

After a few months in transition, she began a part-time ministry at Heartland Nursing Home in Centerville, Ohio, as activities assistant. In this ministry, she served residents who suffered from various forms of dementia. She resigned this position in 2003. Her two sisters, Mary Jane and Bernice, were ill, and she felt a need to be closer to them. She moved to Detroit, and became director of annual giving in the Congregational Development Office. She continued in this position until 2006. At that time she retired, and lived in Warren, Michigan, volunteering her talent in art therapy to the people who were served at the Capuchin Soup Kitchen. Grief entered her life again at the death of her sister Bernice in 2007.

In 2010, she returned to Adrian, and moved into the Dominican Life Center/Regina Residence, where she lived with Sister Mary White, continued her art work, and created beauty on the campus by helping Sister Mary in her work on the grounds. God took her to eternity on September 20, 2011, at the age of seventy-six.

Sister Betty requested a green burial. A memorial Mass was celebrated for her in St. Catherine Chapel on September 22, 2011. A large number of Sister’s relatives were present, as well as her many Dominican friends. Father Robert Kelly, OP, Motherhouse chaplain, was the presider, and Sister Mary White presented to the assembly what Sister Mary Priniski would say at the remembrance service that afternoon. Following the Mass, Sister Betty’s body was interred in the Congregational cemetery planned in circles by Mother Camilla Madden in the early 1900s.

In the afternoon, a remembrance service was held for Sister Betty in the Rose Room. Sister Mary Priniski, Prioress of the Mid-Atlantic Mission Chapter, extended sympathy and welcomed all those present. She summarized Sister Betty’s life and ministry, and added:

Sister Betty prayed with her art. I visited her when she was living in Warren and she showed me parts of her journal. Her journal was a thing of beauty. . . . When she moved to Adrian last year, she was responding to a call to simplify. . . . She brought beauty and gentleness wherever she went. This past weekend, she called two of her friends—just to tell them how grateful she was for their friendship. Indeed, she expressed her gratitude in the gentlest of ways. . . . May we learn from her that attitude of gratitude she expressed wherever she was.

Sister Nancyann Turner sent a remembrance that was read. She wrote in part:

Dear Sister Betty Kubacki was an angel with our children at the Capuchin Soup Kitchen in Detroit. . . . She was amazing! She could work through bad moods, temper tantrums, anxious and hungry children, and engage them in drawings and paintings that calmed and soothed their souls. She brought great love, patience, skill, and dedication to the city children week after week for at least five years. The children and volunteers loved her and still ask about her.

Sister Carleen Maly said:

A year ago she chose to come to our literacy center [on the Motherhouse campus] as a tutor. Her gentleness and care for her students were admirable. She had a tremendous amount of patience. She had a student from Mexico who doesn’t speak English, and who was devoted to her. I couldn’t let that student know of Sister’s death because her mother had died and she returned to Mexico for the funeral.

Sister Kathleen Gaynor also spoke.

We were in the same crowd. She was generous and always gave the crowd a holiday card which she made especially for us. I never heard her complain nor speak in an uncomplimentary way about anyone. She was always happy, and I enjoyed it when she would sit next to me in the chapel. I loved her.

Sister Therese Haggerty shared:

When I was working in the Office of Information, a student called and asked for her address. Some of her students were interested in keeping in touch with her. When she moved on campus, she prayed with us. It was fun to pray with her. I enjoyed her. She was a lovely lady.

Sister Mary Ann Ennis had a humorous story:

Some time ago we were on a retreat in North Carolina. I was giving the retreat, and I asked her to help with the decorations. I had asked the women to bring items from their life to be used as decorations, and one of the women had brought her teeth cup. We laughed so hard about that. But her decorations were beautiful.

Sister Janet Wright remembered:

We went to Dominican High School together, and have been friends all these years since. We entered together, also. When we were in the novitiate we did some stupid things and got into trouble because there were so many rules and regulations. I’ll always remember all the happy times we had at Dominican High.

A group of sisters and laywomen came to the front of the room, and enthusiastically sang the Dominican High song.

Paul and Ann Marie Ciaverilla, relatives, also shared some family remembrances.

Sister Betty brought beauty and gentleness into the Congregation and into the places where she ministered. She is now with the One who brought beauty and gentleness into the world and whose example she followed. We rejoice with her.