Sister Marion Therese Mackey
1925-2008

During her religious life, Sister Marion Therese Mackey served in three ministries: as a teacher, as a nurse, and as a parish minister. She ended her autobiography with these words:

In my sixty years as an Adrian Dominican Sister, I have never known a day of boredom. I have been challenged, it is true, but I can say, joyfully and with alacrity, I am grateful for my vocation and the special graces and blessings my life as an Adrian Dominican Sister has afforded me.

She wrote that she was born on October 28, 1925, in Detroit, “in a simple upstairs flat on Inglis Avenue on the southwest side,” and baptized Mary Ann. Her mother was Anna (Normandy) Mackey from Tilbury, Ontario, Canada, of French and Scottish ancestry; and her father was Frank Taylor Mackey from Lima, Ohio, of Irish and English ancestry. As the years passed, three more daughters were born: Kathleen, Bernadette, and Theresa.

When Mary Ann was four years of age, she contracted tuberculosis. The doctors held little hope for her recovery, but her mother was a strong believer in prayer. After four months of rest and a great deal of prayer, Mary Ann recovered—proving her mother right and the doctors wrong.

She described the neighborhood in which she lived as “a blue-collar area,” where most of the fathers worked for automobile companies, the railroads, public transportation, or utility companies. When the Mackey girls questioned their mother as to their financial status, she answered, “We’re just middle class.” They later learned that statement meant that they had to “pinch pennies.” But there was always room at their dining table for company.

One of the fondest memories of my home life was the Saturday night ritual of placing our missals, collection envelopes, and clean handkerchiefs on the dining table to pick up before we left for the 9:15 Mass each Sunday. The 9:15 Mass was better known as the children’s Mass.

The family lived in St. Gabriel Parish, and the little girls attended St. Gabriel Grade School with the Adrian Dominican Sisters. It was a large school, with twenty classrooms of no less than fifty students in each classroom. When Mary Ann finished elementary school, she progressed to St. Anne High School. She wrote that “religious vocations were always held in high esteem in our home,” and that her parents prayed that one of their daughters would become a religious sister.

In May 1939, when Mary Ann was thirteen years of age, her father died of a heart ailment. His widow was left with four young daughters; but she was also blessed with help from her sister Eva, who came to live with the family, and another of the children’s aunts, Corinne and her husband John, who had no children.

The parents’ prayers for a religious vocation in their family were answered. On September 7, 1941, at the end of her freshman year and a month before her sixteenth birthday, Mary Ann entered the postulate at Adrian, Michigan. She received the habit and her religious name on August 19, 1942, and professed her first vows on August 20, 1943.

Within a very short time she was in a car headed for St. Mary School in St. Clair, Michigan, where she taught middle grade students for two years. She was then transferred to Resurrrection in Lansing, Michigan, and taught on the primary level for two years.

In 1947 she was assigned to St. John Nepomucene in Cleveland, Ohio, for three years, teaching at first in fifth grade, then progressing to seventh grade. Returning to Michigan in 1950, she taught junior high students at St. Bernard in Alpena for two years. In August 1951, as a result of summer study at Siena Heights College (now University) in Adrian, she received a Bachelor’s Degree with a major in history and minors in English and Spanish.

In 1952 she was in Chicago teaching sixth and seventh grade at St. Mary of Mount Carmel. Returning to Michigan, she spent four years at St. Clement in Romeo with primary and middle grade students. After another year in Chicago, at St. Columbanus School, she spent the next ten years in Michigan: two years at St. James in Mason, four years at St. John in Ypsilanti, and four years as superior and principal at Our Lady of Victory in Northville. In May 1969, Siena Heights College awarded her a Master’s Degree in administration and supervision.

In 1970 she served as a nurses’ aide at St. Theresa Home in Cincinnati, Ohio. She liked nursing and asked to continue in that field. For the next year she lived at St. Theresa Home and studied nursing at St. Francis Central School of Practical Nursing, earning an LPN credential in 1972. In addition, she received certification in pharmacology. Sister Anne Marie Snyder was also serving at St. Theresa Home. At the wake, she spoke about that time.

She was nursing and I was doing clerical work. She was very good to the staff, to the residents, to herself, and to me. She had a way of helping people when she was off duty.

There was a Baptist nurse who invited us to a picnic, and we went. Preceding the picnic was a prayer service in their church. People got up and were giving testimonies of their faith. We prayed for the sick people in that area, and all the while we were getting inviting looks to come up to testify. She said to me, “You first.” So I got up and told how Jesus worked in my life, how he used our hearts and hands and feet. We tried to give a good impression. She said the same, and more, when it was her turn. Since then our conversations and writings have not been continuous, but one word was always spoken or written—“testify!”

After another two years at St. Theresa Home, Sister Marion Therese returned to Michigan and spent two years as a nurse at Maria Health Care Center in Adrian

She served again at St. Theresa Home for five months in 1976, then moved to Lourdes Nursing Home in Pontiac, Michigan, for eight months. Two years at Presbyterian Village in Detroit followed. In 1979 she became the school nurse at Regina Dominican High School in Wilmette, Illinois, and ministered there for four years. The year 1980 brought a time of sorrow into her life. Her mother died that year. Then she again nursed at Maria Health Care Center for four years.

She learned that her Aunt Eva, whom she had always considered “a vital part of our family,” and who had always been there when aid was needed, was ill with cancer. Her aunt was living in Wyandotte. Sister Marion Therese was determined to help care for her aunt, and she finally found a position as a parish minister at St. Cyril Parish in Taylor, with her residence at the convent there. Taylor was just a short distance from Wyandotte. Until her aunt’s death, Sister Marion Therese visited and helped her, while also ministering to the homebound and those in nursing facilities. For fourteen years she served St. Cyril Parish. She wrote of this ministry as richly rewarding. “I was able to bring the Lord to those unable to worship as they once had.” When she left St. Cyril Parish, she was given a plaque quoting Mother Teresa, “When we touch the sick, needy, and suffering, we touch the sufferings of Christ.”

In 2001 Sister Marion Therese retired and moved into the Dominican Life Center at Adrian, where she lived in Regina Residence at first. In 2005 failing health made it necessary for her to become a resident in the Maria Building. God took her to eternity on January 10, 2008.

Sister Marion Therese’s wake-remembrance service was held on January 13 in St. Catherine Chapel. In the absence of Sister Joan Sustersic, Sister Mary Pat Dewey, her assistant, opened the service. She extended sympathy to those present: relatives Mary Kay and Pat Koss and Ambrose Mura, IHM friends Kate and Loretta, and her many Dominican friends. Because of the weather, several nieces and nephews were unable to be present. They arrived in Adrian for the funeral, however. Sister Mary Pat summarized Sister Marion Therese’s life and ministry.

A message was read from Sister Marion Therese’s sister Theresa Pariseau, who was ill and unable to be present.

I would like to express my gratitude for all the love and care you have given to my sister over the past sixty-plus years.

Sister Marion Therese loved the community and gave of herself 100%. Her life work reached many souls, and I know my family and I were edified by her life of caring.

Sister Anthonita Porta shared memories that reached back many years.

I know the Mackeys well. Sister Marion Therese’s younger sister Theresa and I grew up together, and we were best friends all through high school. We had IHM [Immaculate Heart of Mary] teachers and were attracted to the religious life. I applied to the IHMs, but they wouldn’t take me. They said I was too young. I was sixteen.

Then I met Sister Marion Therese. She was encouraging and told me not to give up my dream, that if God wanted me it would work out. She invited me, Theresa, and Miriam Mullins to the convent for a week during the Easter vacation to find out something about religious life. We were young teens, and we took her up on the vacation. We ate a lot, laughed a lot, and had a wonderful time… I entered the next year, followed by Miriam and Theresa, but Theresa soon left.

When Sister Marion Therese came here [to Adrian], I visited her often. She loved her family and often spoke to me about her sisters. Theresa is still alive but is ill and was unable to come tonight.

Sister Roselyn Humbert, Sister Marion Therese’s chaplain, also spoke.

There was a woman who knew Sister Marion Therese, whose name was Betty. Sister Marion Therese gave Betty a locket with her initials and their picture in it, and Betty has kept that locket all these years. This year she gave the locket to her daughter, and her daughter took the locket to a jeweler and had her initials and a picture of her children put in there. It’s a beautiful testimony of how they kept in touch all these years.

Sister Laura Marie Smith, a good friend, shared:

It so happened that Theresa and I entered at the same time and became friends. I didn’t know many Adrian Dominicans and was feeling lonely. Then I met Sister Marion Therese, and she told me that I could be her little sister, too. So we became good friends.

At times we lived together, and I got to know her even better, and her family as well. When I was down South, she would occasionally come to visit. When I was in California, there was a beautiful apple tree in the backyard. One day, when Sister Marion was visiting, we came home and smelled something wonderful. She had made apple pies.

Sister Loretta Schroeder, IHM, told those assembled of her friendship with Sister Marion Therese.

Sister Agnes Charles Spoutz came to teach at our school, and that’s how we met the Adrian Dominicans. Through Sister Agnes Charles, we came to know Sister Marion Therese. I’m not sure of the year, but we began to go up to Crofton, the IHM summer place in Canada. Several Dominicans went with us. We had such wonderful, happy times, and we came to know Sister Marion Therese well.

We came to see that she loved her community. She was happy, spiritual, generous, hardworking, and a wonderful cook. She was a beautiful religious, and we’re proud to have known her. We bring the love and sympathy of the IHMs to her family and to her community.

Mary Kay Koss also came to the podium:

I’m part of what you might call her adopted family. My brother married her sister’s niece. Our family thanks you for all that you’ve done for Sister Marion Therese.

About six or seven years ago our daughter was sponsor to our niece in Minneapolis. Sister Marion Therese wanted to go. So we went. The day before the Confirmation ceremony, we went shopping. The Mall of America is huge. Sister bought breakfast… She didn’t go shopping with us. She just sat down, watched everything that was going on, and waited for us. When she was at St. Cyril’s, we would go to her apartment. It was a small apartment, but the door was open to many people. It was a joy to be with her.

Father Roland Calvert, OSFS, was the presider and homilist at Sister Marion Therese’s funeral liturgy on January 14. Father said in part:

Sister Marion Therese was a deeply spiritual person and derived her strength from God, to whom she had given her life… One of the frequently mentioned words in the tributes to Sister these past few days and at the wake last night was the word “hospitality.” She had a lovely smile and genuinely loved people. Even last week, when we gathered in her room for the anointing service, she managed a large smile as we began.

Now she goes to the reward promised all good and faithful servants … reunited with her beloved parents and family and others whom she knew on earth, secure forever in the arms of a loving God.