Sister Margaret Anne Faber
1929-2011

Sister Margaret Anne Faber died at Beaumont/Grosse Pointe Hospital in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. At first she was in the critical care unit, then transferred to a regular room, then to a room with a large window which gave her a good view of the hospital’s garden. At the wake, Sister Frances Nadolny, her Chapter Prioress, spoke of these two weeks and of the garden which began to grow on her windowsill.

A garden began to grow in Sister Margaret’s room. It was a beautiful garden, with a first bouquet of astromedia from a longtime friend of hers. Then her garden expanded to include red roses and violet fuji mums and pinkish-purplish kalanchoe and balloons and yellow and tan fall mum daisies. In these two weeks, people walking this garden path with her included her family, her Adrian Dominican Sisters, her friends and colleagues from past years, her neighbors, and her God.

I read a description of a garden this morning. It stated that a garden “delights the eye and fuels the soul.” On that hospital window sill were fresh flowers interspersed with get well cards and back-dropped by the sun setting over the healing garden – a  magnificent delight to the eye.

An ecology enthusiast, Sister Margaret Anne was one of the two children born to John and Olive (McArthur) Faber, who came from German and Irish backgrounds. Margaret came into the world on January 18, 1929. The Fabers were also the parents of a son, but Sister’s records do not contain any information about him since he died before her entrance into the Congregation. The family lived in Dearborn, Michigan, and belonged to Sacred Heart Parish. John Faber was an accountant, a CPA, and provided a good life for his family.

When it was time for school, Margaret attended Sacred Heart School for both her elementary and high school years, including some music studies. She graduated from high school in June 1947, after which she continued her education with some work at Mercy College, Michigan State University, and Wayne State University. Her studies were in elementary education, and included some art education.

She taught on the third grade level at St. Alphonsus School in Dearborn for almost ten years, and also did recreational work for the city of Dearborn, serving as a swimming instructor. During those ten years, both her mother and her brother, who had served in World War II, died. Her mother died during the summer of 1948. Records do not reveal the date of her brother’s death.

Margaret applied for entrance into the Congregation in 1956, was accepted, and entered on February 2, 1957, from Sacred Heart Parish in Dearborn. She had celebrated her twenty-eighth birthday three weeks before her entrance. With her group, she received the habit and her religious name on August 6, 1957. From that time until the 1970s, she was known as Sister Anne Margaret. That year of her novitiate also held a time of grief for her. Her father died on November 2, All Souls Day, leaving her the sole member of her immediate family. After the required novitiate year, she professed her first vows on August 7, 1958.

Within a short time, she was on her way to Harper Woods, Michigan, where she taught second grade at St. Peter School for two years. In July 1960, as a result of summer study, she received a bachelor’s degree from Siena Heights College (now University) in Adrian, with a major in English and minors in social studies, biology, and chemistry.

She then traveled to Cheektowaga, New York, to teach fourth grade at Mother of Divine Grace School. Back in the Midwest in 1961, she taught in Ohio for four years: in the middle grades at Blessed Sacrament in Toledo for two years and at St. John in Cleveland for two years. In 1965, she was transferred to Detroit, where she taught on the junior-high level for six years: three years at Holy Name and three years at St. Gabriel. She studied during the summers at Siena Heights College, and in May 1969 was awarded a master’s degree in guidance.

She also studied math and changed her area of ministry. From 1971 to January 1978 she served as math consultant at a public school, Bellevue Elementary School, in Detroit. During these years she lived at Bishop Gallagher Convent.

Again she changed her ministry. As a result of summer study, in 1976 she received a second master’s degree from the University of Detroit, this time in reading and learning disabilities. In January 1978 she began five years of teaching at Osborn Public High School, Detroit, in the learning disabilities department.

During the summers she studied at the University of Detroit, and in 1983 earned a degree in Special Education Administration. That same year, she took a position as special education consultant at a resource center in Detroit. Two years later she returned to Osborn High School as head of the Special Education Department. She held this position for twelve years. On her annals form for 1995-96 she wrote:

Theology courses at the University of Windsor and Sacred Heart Major Seminary [during the summers] opened new perspectives for me regarding the concerns of our time, Church structure and the role of laywomen and women in Church life, the theology of women, the theology of ecology.

She wrote that she studied CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) at Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit.

The school population where I work comprises innumerable students whose lives are marked by tragic events. I feel responsible for acquiring techniques and skills that will help them as individuals to seek out means and resources that will serve to develop positive approaches to their problems.

My own experience of total loss of family heightened the quality of the empathy with which I related to the parents of the patients.

During the 1995-96 school year, she served as consultant for a video on the effects of teenage substance dependency that was produced at Children’s Hospital of Michigan by Sister Jane Ryan, IHM, Director of the CPE Program there. Sister Margaret also presented a proposal for tutorial services to benefit secondary student patients.

Her next ministry was at Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit, where she served as chaplain. The next four years were as chaplain at Bon Secours Hospital in Grosse Pointe. She then spent two months as chaplain at St. John Hospital and Medical Center in Detroit. She wrote that she was an active member of the Diversity Committee and that, reflecting her love of music, she often attended the Detroit Symphony Sunday afternoon matinees. She also wrote:

I have long been extremely interested in ecology. I often reflect on the use and abuse of natural resources, and in both my private, communal, and professional endeavors I support and encourage conservation.

In May 2000 she was certified as a chaplain. On her annals form for 2001-02, she wrote that during summer 2001 she made a retreat in Prouille, France, which “made me very proud of my Dominican heritage.” She also wrote of her interests in diversity and the ecology.

From September 2002 to September 2004 she served as a chaplain to the Sisters at the Dominican Life Center in Adrian. On her annals form she wrote that she wanted to serve the Sisters, and that she served as a Mission Group Delegate. She also wrote that she was appointed by the National Association of Catholic Chaplains as the representative to the Pastoral Care Network for Social Responsibility (PCNSR) for two years.

When she left the Dominican Life Center, she returned to St. John Hospital and Medical Center until May 2005. For the next four years, she served as chaplain at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

In 2009, with failing health, she retired, but remained in Detroit until her death on October 23, 2011. She was eighty-two years of age when God called her home.

Adrian was the site of a wake-remembrance service held for Sister Margaret in Holy Rosary Chapel on October 26. Sister Frances Nadolny, Prioress of the Great Lakes Dominican Mission Chapter, summarized Sister Margaret’s life and ministry, and welcomed the many cousins and friends, both secular and Dominican, who had assembled to bid her farewell. She spoke of the many years Sister Margaret spent in teaching, in special education, and as a hospital chaplain.

Sister Margaret prepared herself well for ministering to and with those in challenging and suffering circumstances. During some of those years, she was the loving caregiver of her aunt. She has served the Congregation several times as Mission Group Delegate, including this year and last.

There were many interests in Sister Margaret’s life, especially her family and the phone calls to and from them, as well as their gatherings. She had a lovely piano, and almost always had music playing in her home. She was a swimmer, a skier, a traveler, and an avid University of Michigan fan—even attended the first night football game there earlier this season.

Sister Margaret’s funeral liturgy was celebrated on October 27, also in Holy Rosary Chapel, with Father Robert Kelly as the presider and homilist. She was then laid to rest in the Congregational cemetery.

For two weeks, from her hospital bed Sister Margaret could look out upon the hospital garden, and then at the miniature garden and get well cards on her windowsill. We can imagine, as Sister Frances said, “God, the Gardener, welcoming her with open arms into the beautiful garden of eternal life.”