Sister Loretta Ruedisueli
1911-2009
Sister Loretta was a most appreciative person. She wrote to those who cared for her at the Dominican Life Center/Maria:
We never know what our final days will be like, so, at this time, while of sound mind, I want to thank the priests, nurses, aides, and all who took care of me. In the time I have been here, I have witnessed the loving care that they have given to our sick. So I take the opportunity to let them know how much I appreciate the same loving care. May God bless them always.
After their marriage, her parents, Louis and Laura (Mahlmeister) Ruedisueli made their home in St. Catherine Parish on the east side of Detroit. God blessed them with eight children: Ann Dolores (who died at an early age), Louis, Virginia, Paula, Loretta, Florence, John, and Rosemary. Loretta came into the world on October 19, 1911. She wrote:
I was baptized in St. Anthony Church, a neighboring parish to St. Catherine because St. Catherine Church as such was not built then. Services were held in the front of a store on Mack Avenue.
Her paternal grandparents, George and Petronella (Matthee) Ruedisueli had emigrated from Holland in the 1800s, and settled in Detroit. Her maternal grandparents, John and Ann Marie (Eilermann) Mahlmeister were of German ancestry and lived in Dayton, Ohio. John Mahlmeister was the only grandfather she knew, and his visits made an unforgettable impression on her. She wrote:
Each of us was the apple of his eye. Of course, my mother was the cream of his coffee! I can remember him so vividly. We would sit by the hours just to listen to his interesting stories. . . . He loved ice cream and made many a trip to the store to have a supply of it in the house. But it didn’t take long before the ice cream supply was depleted and my grandfather would return to the store for more ice cream! No wonder we hated to see the day come when he said that he would have to go back to Dayton, Ohio!
The Ruedisueli children all attended St. Catherine Grade and High School with the IHM (Immaculate Heart of Mary) Sisters. The family also had a cottage on Lake Saint Clair. Sister Loretta described it as “a large garage that my parents transformed into a cottage.” All of them spent most of the summers in the water, and went ice skating in the winters. Loretta loved to swim and skate.
She must have taken typewriting and shorthand in high school, for upon graduation in 1929 she worked for two years, a year teaching typewriting and shorthand at St. Catherine High School and in the Detroit Community Fund Office for a year. At the end of that time, she asked her parents’ permission to enter religious life. They gave their permission, but her father said, “Yes, but you will be home before six weeks are up. You like swimming and skating too much.” It is evident that she proved him wrong.
She was twenty-one years of age when, on January 29, 1933, in one of the worst blizzards of that winter, her parents drove her to Adrian where she entered the postulate. She wrote that when they left she began to cry very hard, and the postulant mistress took her to a place where she could cry without being heard or seen. She wrote, “Guess this was my biggest test!” With her group, she received the habit and her religious name, Sister Louis Virginia, on August 8, and professed her first vows on August 9, 1934.
Shortly after profession, she was sent to Chicago, where she spent sixteen years: four years with second graders at Our Lady of Good Counsel, four years with middle grade students at St. Philip Neri, and eight years with middle and junior high student at St. Columbanus. She wrote in a humorous vein of confiscating roller skates from her students, who had skated to school, and taking the skates home later. She and the other younger sisters spent the evening roller skating in the basement, unaware that some of the students were watching through the windows.
It was during this time in Chicago that, as a result of summer study, in summer 1942 she received a bachelor’s degree from Siena Heights College (now University) with a major in English and minors in history and Spanish. It was also during this time that she lost both parents. Her father suffered a stroke and died in January 1944, and her mother died five years later in December 1949. She returned to Michigan for two years, teaching in the middle grades for a year at St. Joseph in St. Joseph and a year at St. Luke in Flint, then was sent to West Virginia, where she spent six years with middle graders at St. Augustine in Grafton.
She liked to cook, was a good cook, and obviously spent time in the kitchen. Her autobiography included two humorous stories. The first concerned a large roast that she was given by a parishioner who had shot a deer. She realized that the sisters would not eat it if they knew that it was deer meat, so without telling them, she sliced and marinated the meat, and it served them for several meals. The sisters ate and enjoyed the meat, and were astonished when they finally learned that it was deer meat. The second story concerned the reception at the back door of a large package of meat, which she thought was a gift. She cut the meat into small pieces and made stew for supper. About a half hour after supper, the phone rang. It was the pastor asking whether a package of filet mignon steaks were delivered to the convent by mistake. She had to admit to him that she had received the meat and had served it to the sisters for supper, although she didn’t tell him that she had made stew out of choice steaks.
Her assignment for 1959 was somewhat of a shock. She was named superior and principal at St. Lawrence in Detroit. She wrote that there she had many opportunities to help the poor.
I remember one instance of getting the gas turned on for one family who had neither heat in the house nor gas to cook meals for several months. God bless my brother Louis who was instrumental in getting the flow of gas into this family’s house.
The assignment lasted for only four years, however, and then she was assigned to Adrian Catholic Central High School in Adrian as a teacher of business courses and religion. In summer 1965 Siena Heights College awarded her a master’s degree in education.
After three years at Catholic Central she taught business courses at St. Paul in Owosso for three years. She wrote that her last year there the business classes that she taught merged with the public high school.
When I received my little white appointment card, it said “Secretary, Generalate Offices,” I was heartsick to think that I was taken out of the classroom. However, it didn’t take me a month before I fell in love with the work I was doing. The Renewal Chapter of 1968 was drawing to a close and, believe me, we had plenty of work to do. There was never a dull moment. I would like to add here that the Central Services Office was initiated at this time.
After five years as an office worker and archivist at the Motherhouse, she went back to Detroit as secretary and bookkeeper at St.Gabriel Parish for four years. “This kept me hopping during the day and sometimes at night.” She then spent a year as a staff member at St. Henry in Lincoln Park. There she did the shopping, cooking, kept the convent in order, and took the sisters to the doctors. She wrote:
In the afternoon of April 4, 1979, I picked up Sister Anne Lyons who had been taking a course at Mount Sinai Hospital. Coming home on the expressway, I skidded on the ice and was in a serious accident. Upon my being released from the hospital, my doctor told me that it was a miracle that I could walk. God was so good to me in preventing Sister Anne from getting hurt.
That same year the pastor closed St. Henry convent, and the sisters living there went to Regina in Adrian. Sister Loretta then served at St. Suzanne Parish in Detroit as secretary and bookkeeper until 1992, while living at St. Alphonsus Convent. She retired that year, and continued living at St. Alphonsus Convent for ten more years. She wrote that she helped around the house, and made coffeecakes and cookies. She also was the bookkeeper during her last years there. It was there, too, that she celebrated her Diamond Jubilee in 1992 and her Double Diamond Jubilee in 2002.
She arrived in Adrian in June 2002, and wrote that she was very happy living at the Dominican Life Center/Maria. “I love it here.” At the age of ninety-four, she was elected to the Mission Council and did well for two years. When death came to her on August 16, 2009, she was ninety-seven years old.
Sister Loretta’s wake-remembrance service was held in St. Catherine Chapel on August 19. Sister Jo Gaugier, Prioress of Holy Rosary Mission Chapter, extended sympathy and welcomed those who had come to bid farewell to Sister Loretta: several nieces and nephews, and many Dominican friends. Sister Jo summarized Sister Loretta’s life and ministry, and described her as “a tall woman with a big heart.”
We will remember her in recent days as walking with a walker, or riding her trusty Amigo, which she did as she simply grew more tired. However, in her inimitable sense of humor, she had asked God to let her know—a year in advance—when she was going to die. She explained that if she knew she had only one year to live, she would eat all the things she shouldn’t. God called her home, perhaps not with a year’s notice, but she had known it was time.
Sister Thomas James Burns had sent a message that was read. She was one of the students in Sister Loretta’s eighth grade class at St. Columbanus in Chicago, and Sister had been a big support when Sister Thomas James’s father died.
Hopefully, your relatives and the sisters won’t think me irreverent as I share the nicknames we eighth graders gave you. When we talked about you, it was always “Louie V” or “Stretch.” How grateful I am for the lengthy visit we had when I was in Adrian for the 125th celebration. I will always treasure that time together.
Sister Mary Louise Gass said:
About two weeks ago I went to see her and she said, “Pray for me.” I said, “For what should I pray?” Her response was, “That I do the Will of God.” I’ve known her since we lived together in the ‘60’s and at St. Gabriel’s later. She really did God’s Will her whole life. Even when she was asked to leave the classroom and do office work, she did it willingly. That’s one of her attributes that we can imitate.
Sister Marie Gabriel Courter had also sent a testimonial. She wrote in part:
There are so many ways that Sister Loretta has enriched my life. She endured much suffering and was willing to help others, even in difficult situations. She always took time for prayer. She had great devotion to Our Blessed Lady. So many times here at Maria, she volunteered to sit with the sisters who were ill. She was a great cook and baker, had a great sense of humor, and often circulated funny jokes. We arranged parties here at times. . . . I will miss her.
Sister Mary Kathleen O’Neill also was in Sister Loretta’s class at St. Columbanus.
Confirmation was coming up, and we didn’t have our Confirmation names in. One day she said that all the boys would be “Louis” and all of the girls would be “Virginia.” My Confirmation name is “Therese,” so you can see that I took what she said to heart.
James Wirtz, Sister Loretta’s nephew, shared some remembrances.
Last week we visited Sister here in Adrian, knowing that it was probably the last time we would see her in this life. She asked us to come. She knew what was happening, as she gave up her pain medicine so that she could communicate with us. She was suffering, and we understood that. What a dear person she was, to have done that.
We, her biological family, have learned that she had developed a much extended family with all of you that is just as loving and caring as her birth family. She may have given up swimming and ice skating, but she gained the love and respect of a much greater family in her Dominican life and life with Christ. Some of her last words to us were that she could not have had a better way to live this life.
Beth Moore, Sister’s grandniece, also spoke. She remembered playing cards with Sister Loretta, and how they teased her and she teased them. “I feel sorry for any of the sisters here that she played cards with. But she was a lot of fun to be with.” Beth also mentioned the wonderful fig bars that Sister would make, and how they looked forward to them at holiday times.
Father Robert Kelly, OP, was the presider and homilist at Sister Loretta’s funeral liturgy on August 20. Burial followed the liturgy. In the cemetery laid out in circles by Mother Camilla Madden, Sister Loretta’s body lies in peace.