Sister Mary Ann Schikowski
1929-2008

In Sister Mary Ann Schikowski’s file are copies of the many St. Catherine letters that she wrote to Sister Noreen McKeough from 1980 to 1998. In them, all of her ministries are described in detail. In one of the opening paragraphs of her first letter, she wrote:

I have been living for over fifty years but have never spent much time thinking about it… This morning I thought about my life. Each day I have a chance to begin anew. Sounds sort of like the “born again” Christian!

She was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on June 30, 1939, to Albert and Emma (Reinhard) Schikowski. Emma Schikowski had been told by a doctor that she could never have children, and Mary Ann, her first born, weighed only three-and-a-half pounds. Sister Mary Ann wrote, “Mom and Dad had to work hard to get enough money to buy the special formula that I needed.” In later years a brother and sister, Paul and Jeanette, followed her into the family. “Thank God for the fallibility of doctors,” Sister Mary Ann wrote.

Albert Schikowski was a butcher, the owner of two meat markets. The family moved a few times as his business improved. Mary Ann began her education at St. Thomas School in Cleveland, and finished her elementary years at St. Gregory the Great in South Euclid. Her high school years were spent at Notre Dame Academy, also in South Euclid. Both St. Gregory and the Academy were operated by the Notre Dame Sisters. One of the Notre Dame sisters, realizing that Mary Ann might have a vocation, spoke to her about the religious life. When she told her father he said, “You don’t want that!” So thoughts of the religious life were “put on the shelf.” She participated in sports, and met a teacher that she liked very much, her gym teacher. She decided that in the future she also would be a gym teacher.

Upon graduating from the Academy, she attended Notre Dame College in South Euclid, again with the Notre Dame Sisters, where she majored in health and physical education and minored in biology. She wanted to be a physical education instructor, but after receiving her degree in 1951 she could not find a job in that discipline. Teaching positions were available to her, but not in the field that she wanted. One of her friends, also a PE major, told her of a “place” in Detroit that was in need of a gym teacher. That place turned out to be Dominican High School, staffed by the Adrian Dominican Sisters. She wrote, was interviewed, and was hired. She had a cousin in Detroit, and made arrangements to live with her and her family.

At that time, Mary Ann was the only lay teacher at Dominican High, and she and the office clerk had lunch together. During that first year, Mary Ann came to know many of the sisters, and also became friendly with many of the students. During her second year there, she was invited to an evening movie with the sisters, and became even more attracted to religious life. She consulted a priest friend, and every day she prayed to St. Jude to show her what to do. Before the end of that second year she had made a decision—she would seek entrance into the Adrian Dominican Congregation. She told her parents of this decision “hiding behind a newspaper. What a coward I was!” But she discovered that her father was really proud of her and the step she was taking. She realized this upon receiving congratulations from salesmen when she was in one of her father’s stores.

One afternoon some sisters driving to Adrian invited her along. She went with them, bringing with her a rough draft of a letter asking for admission into the postulancy. When they arrived back in Detroit, she told the sisters that she had asked to enter the Congregation, and she also told her parents. Her mother made the postulant’s garb for her, and helped her to shop for the other necessary articles.

On the day of her entrance, June 27, 1953, her parents drove her to the Cleveland train station, where she took the train to Detroit, and a taxi to Dominican High School. She wrote that during her last lunch with her priest friend, “I could hardly eat.” After lunch the sisters drove her to Adrian, where she donned the postulant’s garb and received the postulant’s veil from Mother Mary Gerald Barry.

She was twenty-four years old and, as she wrote, “entering with ‘kids’ I had just had in school.” It was also, no doubt, an unusual experience for those “kids,” who found themselves entering religious life with a former teacher.

Within a short time she was back in Detroit, teaching first graders at St. Scholastica School for the first semester of the 1953-54 school year. She returned to Adrian for the Christmas holidays, and with her group received the habit and her religious name (Sister Catherine Albert) on December 30. The required novitiate year of prayer and study followed, during which she also taught a few classes. Profession of first vows took place on December 31, 1954.

Soon she was in a car bound for Swanton, Ohio, and a class of third graders. This assignment lasted for only two months, however. A science teacher was needed at Dominican High School, and she was assigned there. “It was amusing to see the students’ faces when they first saw their ‘old gym teacher’ as a nun.” She taught there for two years.

In March 1957 she began her overseas ministry at Colegio Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. From Detroit, she boarded the plane for Florida with two other sisters. A slightly inebriated woman approached them, and told them that she was going to the race track. She told them that she would bet on a horse for each of them, and each chose a horse. Sister Mary Ann tried to ignore her, but eventually had to choose a horse.

While making the necessary preparations for her overseas mission, Sister Mary Ann stayed at Barry College in Miami. There, once again, she met the woman from the plane. It seems that the horse on which she had bet had won, and the woman visited her at Barry and gave her $48.38. She was astonished at the woman’s honesty. She left for Santo Domingo on March 20, carrying in her purse class rings that had been ordered. A sister met the plane in Santo Domingo and took her purse from her before she went through Customs. During the ride to the Colegio, she realized that “this was the beginning of my career as a smuggler.”

Within a short time she developed a fever and spent the next month in bed. She taught at the Colegio for two years, was transferred to Colegio San Antonio in Puerto Rico for three years, then returned to Santo Domingo for another year.

In 1963 she was brought back to the States and assigned to Hoban Dominican High School in her home town of Cleveland, happy to be near her family. Her father was ill, and he died in 1965. After a year at Hoban Dominican she was transferred back to Michigan, where she taught for three years at Bishop Gallagher High School in Harper Woods. She spent the next eleven years in her native Cleveland. The first six years were for four years as a teacher at Hoban Dominican High School (for the second time), and two years at Cleveland Catholic Central, where she also served in the library. In 1968, as a result of summer study, she earned a Master’s Degree in Library Science at Case Western Reserve University.

In 1973 she left the teaching field, and began her ministry to the elderly in three Cleveland parishes: St. John Nepomucene, St. Stanislaus, and Immaculate Heart of Mary, with her residence at St. John Nepomucene. After three years, Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish came into the project, and she began ministering under the auspices of Catholic Charities. In this arrangement, she was in contact with eight parishes, and provided workshops and consultation for other Diocesan parishes. Much of her work was publicized in various newspapers.

She moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1978, where she became Director of Resident Services at St. Theresa Home. Six years later she transferred to Mentor, Ohio, as a pastoral minister at St. John Vianney Parish. In 1991, she became a pastoral minister at St. Hilary Parish in Akron. During these years she earned a second Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work from Cleveland State University in 1989, and certificates in lay pastoral ministry and gerontology. Also, during these years, in 1991, she lost her mother.

On August 1, 1993, she became coordinator of Regina Residence in Adrian. This position was phased out in 1996, but she remained in Adrian and began a ministry with Goodwill-LARC as job coach. At the wake Beverly Lyell, Director of Goodwill, said:

Everybody liked her. Goodwill, of course, helps to train people with disabilities so that they can hold down jobs. Sometimes there are problems or difficulties with some of them. When this happened, the staff would say, “Sister Mary Ann can take care of this. She’ll straighten things out.” When the people causing difficulties went to her, she’d say a few things to them and they’d come back to us with a different attitude.

In 2002 Sister Mary Ann retired and lived in the Dominican Life Center/Regina Residence. She, however, was not idle. Talented in the field of art, she did much creative work in her apartment. Sister Jean Irene McAllister sent a message to the wake. She wrote in part:

Sister Mary Ann was a very talented and gifted person, and lots of fun. We had many laughs together. She has been working on her family tree… She was a good baker and shared her “goodies” with the other residents on third floor in Regina. Once recently, when she and I served at the Maria Jubilee Dinner, we were not assigned a particular table but were “floaters.” After that, when we met in the hall, we would flap our arms like angel wings. Now she can really flap her wings like an angel. I shall miss her.

Sister Catherine Podvin said:

She was very much into arts and crafts and woodworking. One time she gave all of us in her Mission Group little woven macramé baskets filled with note paper. I was astonished at how professional they looked. Also, she worked all year long on articles that she created for the sale in December. I remember visiting her in her apartment one time when she was working. It seemed like a lot of disorder to me, but she knew what she was doing and where everything was. The things that she had on display on her table at the sale were beautiful. If you bought one for yourself or to give as a gift, you could be proud of it.

Patti McLaughlin of the Portfolio Advisory Board sent an email lauding Sister Mary Ann.

Sister Mary Ann has long been a supporter of PAB and the work we do for the Congregation. She was an avid proxy voter and had a deep commitment to social justice. She was also our favorite “paper shredder.” She would come into the office with her grocery cart that we would fill up with confidential documents that she would shred. PAB appreciates all the help she provided, as well as her support for those marginalized in our society.

Sickness attacked Sister Mary Ann in 2008, and she moved into the Maria Building. Sister Catherine said:

On Memorial Day I took the afternoon to visit some of the sisters at Maria. I visited Sister Mary Ann in her room. She was up and dressed, sitting in a chair, working on her budget for next year, cracking jokes, and in general seeming in quite good spirits.

Christopher Matthias also spoke of the services that Sister Mary Ann gave to the Office of Global Mission, Justice and Peace.

God took Sister Mary Ann to eternity on June 8, 2008.

Her wake-remembrance service was held in St. Catherine Chapel on June 11. Sister Mary Sue Kennedy, Prioress of Adrian Crossroads Mission Chapter, opened the service and extended sympathy to the members of Sister Mary Ann’s family who were present: her sister Jeanette and her family. Sister’s brother Paul and his family were unable to be present. There were, however, many of her Dominican friends on hand. Sister Mary Sue summarized Sister Mary Ann’s life and ministry, and concluded her presentation with a poem that Sister Mary Ann wrote entitled “The Labyrinth.”

Sister Mary Ann’s funeral liturgy took place on June 12, with Father Roland Calvert, OSFS, as preside and homilist. Father said, in part:

The word “generosity” has been used to characterize Sister Mary Ann. At Mass today, we heard Jesus say to the disciples, “What you have received, give away freely!” Sister Mary Ann followed the Lord’s direction with great energy.

The moment of death came last Sunday. Around 1:00 pm, a group of her friends gathered at her bedside, and we had the Sacrament of the Anointing. It was only a few hours later that her death occurred.

Sister Mary Ann followed the course, and has reached the final glorious destination.