Sister Ann Schafer
1939-2008

Sister Ann Schafer spent forty-one years as an Edmonds, Washington, Dominican and five years in the Adrian Dominican Congregation after the two congregations merged in 2003.

She was born on May 30, 1939, in Hoquiam, Washington, to Gerald Joseph and Ann (Apple) Schafer. Two years later Judith Kathryn arrived, followed in four years by Ralph Edward.

Her autobiography began with the year 1870, when her great-grandfather, John Schafer and his wife Anna, arrived from Germany and settled on a farm in the Satsop River Valley in what was then Washington Territory. In Germany John Schafer had been a university professor of music and languages; but, she wrote, “there was little demand for his teaching skills in the wilderness.” The Schafer family included three sons, Peter, Hubert, and Albert, and in 1893 they convinced their parents to let them do some logging. Soon the Schafer Brothers Logging Company came into being. Hubert was Sister Ann’s grandfather, and her father was the third of five children. Her mother “traced her roots” to Canada and Omaha, Nebraska. Both parents, however, grew up in Aberdeen, Washington, living within four blocks of each other.

Shortly after Ann’s birth her parents moved to Seattle, where they attended the University of Washington, then settled in Aberdeen. She wrote:

I was perhaps a strange toddler. I was terrified of dolls and of my Grandfather Apple (much to his dismay), but loved empty Band-Aid cans. Only my mother could understand what I said until I was nearly five.

She began her education at McDermoth Elementary School, and attended through third grade.

My father was a non-practicing Catholic and my mother an Episcopalian. I could choose either religion, although I really wanted to be a Presbyterian because they had good Hallowe’en parties.

Some of the neighbors were Catholic, however, and they began taking her to church and Catechism classes where she met the Edmonds Dominican Sisters. A dislike of her third grade teacher at McDermoth School caused her to beg her parents to send her to St. Mary School. She had an appendectomy shortly before she started school at St. Mary, and so arrived a week late. “They were short of readers, so I shared with the girl behind me and learned to read upside down quite well.”

She had a great desire to learn the piano, and finally was able to take lessons. In seventh grade she began her study of the harp. “My sister and I played in a harp trio in grade school. Later I occasionally played harp with the Grays Harbor Symphony and was a soloist at my high school graduation.” She finished her school years in the public school system at Miller Junior High School and Weatherwax High School from which she graduated in June 1957.

In her file is an undated copy of an article in an unidentified paper that contains a picture of her and another music student who were being featured in a piano recital at St. Mary Auditorium. She is described as an eighth grade student, so it was probably a 1953 issue of the paper. The two were obviously very competent musicians.

The program will include selections by Debussy, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Bach. The two young artists will be assisted by Judith Schafer, Ann’s sister, and by the girls’ choir of St. Mary School.

She wrote that during her childhood she finally conquered her fear of dolls, climbed trees, bicycled and roller skated, “played Kick-the-Can in the dark on summer evenings, and played many card and board games.” In seventh grade her interest in art was encouraged, and knitting and sewing became hobbies. For several years she wanted to become a religious sister, but postponed her entrance because of family pressure. Upon graduation from high school, she began her college years.

She attended Seattle University for a year, spent the next year at Grays Harbor College, and a third year at Central Washington College in Ellensburg. At the age of twenty-one, she entered the postulate at Rosary Heights in Edmonds on August 27, 1960, one of seven candidates. Reception of the habit and her religious name, Sister Mary Catherine, took place on June 14, 1961, and she professed her first vows on June 14, 1963. She spent the year after profession finishing her bachelor’s degree at the Sister Formation College, but received it summa cum laude in 1964 from Seattle University.

Her first assignment as a professed sister sent her to St. Luke School in Seattle, where she taught fifty third graders in the morning and forty-seven seventh graders in the afternoon. She described it as “an impossible combination and a very difficult beginning.” For the first two years, making things even more difficult, she lived at Rosary Heights in Edmonds and traveled back and forth. She moved into St. Luke Convent in her third and last year there. That year she also became involved in giving piano lessons and accompanying the school choir on the piano or organ. In the fifth grade class that she was assigned to teach were the students that she had in third grade her first year. She wrote, “They remain one of my all-time favorite classes!”

In 1967 she was assigned to Holy Angels High School in Seattle with her residence at St. Alphonsus Convent. She had been studying library science and received a master’s degree from the University of Washington in 1968. When she left St. Luke School she was assigned to assist the librarian at Holy Angels who was not well, and to eventually replace her. This, however, did not come to pass, and she taught in the high school instead. In her autobiography she wrote of her happiness that this “much-dreaded future” as a librarian never came about.

Sister Ann returned to St. Luke in 1968, and remained there for forty years. For the first ten years, she taught music. Her time, she wrote, was divided among piano students, choral groups, and classroom music. “By the end of the first year I had taught the children all I knew, and was, therefore, grateful to begin my summers at Marylhurst College earning my music degree,” a second bachelor’s degree that she received in 1974. She wrote:

In 1979 it was decided to turn my music room into a pre-school and kindergarten, and I decided I was not willing to try to keep my program going in a corner of the auditorium, a much-used facility. So I began teaching sixth grade. . . . I continued as a parish organist until about 1983 and as organist for school liturgies until about 1989.

Surprisingly, I do not miss the music ministry. I have been at St. Luke so long that I now have second generation children, which is delightful. I am a great “Jack of all trades and master of none,” and so grade school teaching is perfect for me. I can dabble in many areas. I have special interests in art, social studies, literature, and English.

When she celebrated her Silver Jubilee in 1988, her picture and a short writeup were included in an article in the June issue of The Times. Included in the article were interviews with three other Edmonds Sisters, one known as Sister Robert Byron (now Sister Judy), also celebrating her Silver Jubilee, and two others taking final vows.

From 1982 to 1990, in addition to teaching she served on the Editorial Board of the Edmonds Congregation, on the Ministry Fund Committee, and on the Chapter Planning Committee, and as secretary of the Chapter. She also served two terms as Secretary of the Congregation.

About her interests she wrote:

I still like to knit and sew, making many of my clothes over the years and learning most of my skills from my mother. I also have a real interest in cooking, and have had a small tomato patch for many years. I am a great British mystery devotee and have become an avid crossword puzzle fan in more recent years.

But most of all I love to travel. I realized a lifetime dream in 1989 when a friend and I spent five weeks finding our way throughout Europe. In 1995 we returned for three weeks to England, Scotland, and Wales. My sister and I have explored from her home in central Ohio as far east as Niagara Falls and Williamsburg, Virginia.

She was forced to leave her teaching ministry when sickness came upon her in the summer of 2008. God took her to eternity on December 4 of that year.

A wake-remembrance service was held for Sister Ann on December 9 at St. Luke Church in Shoreline, Washington. Her funeral liturgy took place the next day, December 10, also at St. Luke Church. Sister Ann’s sister Judy and her brother Ralph were both present, as well as her nephew Andrei, Judy’s son.

Sister Judy Byron, the former Sister Robert, a member of Sister Ann’s “crowd,” gave the eulogy at the funeral liturgy. She summarized Sister Ann’s life and ministry, and added:

In summers Sister Ann loved to travel. . . . This year she left the day after school was out in June for a sixteen-day trip to Spain, France, and Italy. She had won our congregation’s drawing for the Lands of Dominic tour.

Sister Judy continued:

This year was another new beginning for Sister Ann. In her Christmas letter, which she had ready to mail, she wrote:

As we know, God had other plans for her. I’m sure that she was as surprised as we were when, in an instant, she was with her God. Over the past six months, she has faced each new medical experience with an inquisitive, positive, hopeful, and grateful attitude. Knowing her as we do, we are confident that she arrived in the presence of her God ready and excited for her final new beginning.

“I’m not sure how I made it to the end of the trip in June because on July 3 I was diagnosed with extensive stage-4 cancer. Since then my life has been chemo, hospital stays, surgery in October, and now more chemo till early March—which takes care of teaching for the year. But I do plan to go back in the fall. I have had wonderful support from my family, sisters, friends, and school community.”

Sister Ann would have celebrated her Golden Jubilee in 2013. Sister Judy said, “She would often remind me that we could use the same readings that we used for our twenty-fifth jubilee in 1988 for they were our favorites.”

When God called her, Sister Ann was sixty-nine years of age. She did not anticipate death but looked forward to continue her teaching ministry. The Creator, however, took her to her eternal home instead.