Sister Marguerite O'Callaghan
1925-2008
Sister Marguerite O'Callaghan began her autobiography, written in 1992, by quoting a passage of Scripture: "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." She wrote that this could be said of her life. "It's humbling to know that God always takes the initiative and, seemingly, was a 'Hound of Heaven' for me."
She was the daughter of Frank and Frances (Donovan) O'Callaghan. Born on April 21, 1925, in Alpena, Michigan, she was one of eleven children, eight of whom survived: Mary Frances, Mark, Marguerite, Pat, Paul, Kathryn, John, and Maureen. Michael, Patricia Marie, and Edward died at young ages.
In her autobiography, she wrote of her heritage. Both parents were of Irish ancestry. Frank O'Callaghan was from Alliston in Ontario, Canada. His father was a farmer, and his mother, a former school teacher. Trained as a pharmacist, he left Canada and lived for a time with cousins in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. After he established himself as a pharmacist, he saw to it that his three brothers came to the States, and they also became pharmacists. Patricia, the daughter of his sister Kathleen Lynch, later entered the Adrian Dominican Congregation. She was known as Sister Francis Kathleen until the 1970s.
Frances Donovan was born on a farm near Flint, Michigan. She disliked farming, studied for two years at Ypsilanti Teachers College, and taught school in Alpena. There she and Frank O'Callaghan met, married, and made their home in Alpena. She always said that in her early years she had a desire to enter religious life, but knew that her father would object. Sister Marguerite wrote, "He had a strong will, and she knew better than to cross him." Joan, the daughter of Frances Donovan's brother Bill, also entered the Adrian Dominicans and until the 1970s was known as Sister Joan Michael. Sister Marguerite frequently enjoyed the company of her two cousins.
From her earliest years Marguerite suffered from allergies. When it became apparent that she was allergic to milk, her mother replaced the milk with carrots. Marguerite was also the victim of severe colds, which brought on asthma. As time went on, allergic reactions proved her intolerance to many other substances besides milk. She described herself as "a sickly child."
Both her elementary and secondary school years were spent at St. Bernard School, the secondary years with the Adrian Dominican Sisters. In her file is a picture from an unidentified publication that shows a group of twelve high school girls who volunteered to sell war bonds and stamps during July and August 1942, the World War II years. Marguerite was one of them.
[They worked] from a booth set up on Second Avenue in front of the Alpena Savings Bank, each giving three hours a day in turn. Their sales were very successful. The booth was a replica of an air raid shelter, and was constructed of sand bags.
The idea of becoming a religious sister had entered her mind, and she fought against it. Upon graduation from high school, she spent the next year at Siena Heights College (now University) in Adrian. She left the college, went back home to Alpena, and found work as a stenographer. In 1947, when Marguerite was twenty-two, her mother died. She and her younger siblings took turns cooking for the family. At the wake, her brother John said:
I remember how Marguerite would treat her asthma. She would burn some kind of compound and it would fill the room with this strong smoke. It was supposed to help her breathe. I can't forget that memory-her allergies. . . . She had a real tough road to hoe in her general health. She was allergic to everything.
In 1952 Marguerite moved to Lansing and found work. God, the "Hound of Heaven," continued pursuing her. There she met Father William Hankerd, associate pastor at St. Mary Parish, who encouraged her to think of entering religious life. After talking to Sister Jean Patricia McGowan at Resurrection Parish, she decided to become an Adrian Dominican. Sister Jean Patricia asked her why she wanted to become an Adrian Dominican, and she had no satisfactory answer. Many times, in later years, she gave much thought to that question.
On September 5, 1953, twenty-eight years of age, Marguerite entered the Adrian postulate. Almost immediately she was sent to St. Philip Neri School in Chicago, where she taught seventh grade. She returned to Adrian for the summer and, with her group, received the habit and her religious name (Sister Francis Patrice) on August 4, 1954. The next year was spent in Adrian as a novice, learning what was expected of a Dominican religious. On August 5, 1955, she and her group professed their first vows. During that year her father remarried.
Within a short time she was in a car bound for Ruth, Michigan, where she taught junior high and middle grade students at SS. Peter and Paul School. Her brother John believes that it was at Ruth that her ill health seriously began with a perforated ulcer. After three years at Ruth, she was on the train for Florida, to minister with junior high and middle grade students at St. Patrick School in Miami Beach. In November 1963 she returned to Michigan for her father's funeral. A happier occasion occurred for her in 1962, when she received a Bachelor's Degree from Siena Heights College in Adrian with a major in English and minors in history and secretarial science.
Beginning with 1964, she was transferred to St. Augustine in Grafton, West Virginia, as a teacher of junior high and middle grade students. At the wake her brother John said:
I visited her there right after the assassination of President Kennedy. That was a small place. It's the first town in the United States that celebrated Mother's Day, and from there it went all around the world
Two years later Sister Marguerite left the States for the Bahamas and Nassau, as a teacher of high school commercial subjects at Aquinas College. Her brother John, who had become a priest, said at the wake "I went there with a group of brother priests, about six. It was a great visit, and we motored all around the whole island." After a year she was transferred back to Michigan to teach sixth grade and serve as assistant principal at Our Lady of Victory in Northville.
In her autobiography, she wrote of her difficulty in teaching. "Even before renewal, I began to ask to get out of teaching. It took some convincing of the authorities because of our ministerial overcommitment, but I finally made it." In 1969 she was kept at the Motherhouse and assigned as a secretary in Central Services. Open placement had begun, and she decided to find her own ministry.
For the next four years she worked as a secretary in Detroit: two years at the Child Appraisal Center, a year at the First Federal Savings and Loan Association, and a year for the Archdiocese of Detroit. In her autobiography, she wrote, "I was able to have a close relationship with my sister Maureen and her husband Bob and their family." She then spent a year in Chicago at the Midwest Career Development Center and a year at the Community Fund of Chicago, Inc., followed by three years as secretary at T.P. Behan Junior High School in Farmington, Michigan.
For six years she served in Oakland, California: three years as secretary at Holy Cross Provincial Office, and three years in the office of the Diocese of Oakland. At the wake, Sister Virginia O'Reilly reminisced about those days. She spoke of Sister Marguerite's kindness to her when a fall down a stairway ended in a hospital stay. When she left the hospital, Sister Marguerite helped her to dress, get to her ministry, and picked her up at day's end.
She was working as secretary for the Co-Provincials of Holy Cross Province. It was a time of much change and confusion. During this time, Sister Marguerite's assistance was very valuable, since many of the sisters would be quite upset when they came to the provincial office. She welcomed them with great kindness, and assisted in getting their needs met in seeing one of the Co-Provincials. She was quiet, reliable, and efficient. She did not need to be told what to do. She would see what needed to be done, and get at it.
It was then that the fungus she had contracted . . . became a difficulty for her. This was known as "valley fever." The doctors were not able to eradicate the fungus in her bronchi. The best they could do was contain it.
Sister Marguerite then took a sabbatical year and studied at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. In 1986 she returned to Adrian, and served for a year as secretary to the General Council. Traveling to Phoenix the next year, she spent four years as secretary to the Marriage Tribunal of the Diocese of Phoenix. She spent the next year in Arizona recuperating from surgery and valley fever. For a few months she lived in Tempe and the rest of the year in Phoenix. She wrote of her time in Tempe, "It has been my pleasure to extend hospitality as I have received much of it during my many years as a gypsy Dominican." When she was able, she accepted a ministry as secretary for the Florida Mission Chapter in West Palm Beach, but only for a year. At the wake her brother John said, "In 1993 we all went to the Holy Land, and that was a shining time for all of us. . . . Marguerite thanked us for including her in those plans."
Sister Marguerite retired in 1994 but remained in West Palm Beach with her residence at Cardinal Newman Convent, and engaged in volunteer ministries. In January 1996 she volunteered her services to Barry University in Miami Shores, and served as secretary in the archives until November 2002. Sister Dorothy Jehle, the current archivist at Barry University, sent a fax that was read at Sister Marguerite's wake. She wrote that Sister Marguerite was accurate and attentive to detail. She catalogued more than half of the files in the Operation Pedro Pan Collection at Barry.
"Operation Pedro Pan" was the code name used by newspapermen and TV newscasters in the Miami area to refer to the mass exodus of over 14,000 unaccompanied Cuban children who flew from Havana, Cuba, to Miami, Florida, between December 1960 and October 1962. These children were met at the Miami Airport by representatives of Catholic Community Services of Miami and given shelter in Miami or at other Catholic Charities across the United States until their parents could get to this country and re-claim them. Monsignor Bryan O. Walsh, Director of Catholic Community Services of Miami, was responsible for the whole operation. Monsignor Walsh and the Archdiocese of Miami placed the papers at Barry University for archiving.
Sister Dorothy wrote that these children are now in their fifties or sixties, that they frequently come to Barry to see their records, and are very grateful to all those who helped them in their early days. Two past mayors of Miami and Bishop Felipe Estevez of the Archdiocese of Miami are among their number.
Sister Marguerite was really a "gypsy." In addition to the travels necessitated by her ministries and the trip to the Holy Land, she wrote of various other trips: in 1975 a trip to the World's Fair in New York with some of her family, in 1980 a Jubilee trip to Boston, and a trip from the San Diego area into Mexico. In November 2002 Sister Marguerite moved into Casa Maria in West Palm Beach. She returned to Adrian in June 2004, where she lived in the Dominican Life Center, at first in Regina Residence. In January 2006 it was necessary for her to transfer to the Maria Building, where she died on May 29, 2008, a month after turning eighty-three years of age.
On June 1 a wake-remembrance service was held for Sister Marguerite in St. Catherine Chapel. In the absence of Sister Mary Sue Kennedy, Sister Marguerite's Chapter Prioress, Sister Joan Sustersic, Prioress of Holy Rosary Mission Chapter, welcomed the members of Sister Marguerite's family who were present: her brothers, John and his wife Dena, Patrick and his wife Helen, and Thomas; her brother-in-law Robert Stocker, husband of her deceased sister Maureen; her sister Kathryn Schmanski and her husband Marvin; several cousins, nieces, and nephews; and many Dominican friends. She extended sympathy, and summarized Sister Marguerite's life and ministry.
She also spoke of Sister Marguerite's last days:
She had an appointment with Dr. McKeon, just a regular appointment. He detected a heart irregularity, and had her admitted to Bixby Hospital. Since that time, she came home, returned to her room in 2-Maria and then to 3-South, then a couple more stays in the hospital . . . with severe pneumonia. After several more days of hospitalization and with little hope of improvement unless she had major surgery, Sister Marguerite returned to the Dominican Life Center where we kept her comfortable until God called her.
Her brother John said:
She also had cancer of the breast. I was very much impressed that she didn't complain a lot. She accepted that cross beautifully. Also, I would like to pay tribute to her affection and love for my sister Maureen's family, the Stocker family. She just loved Maureen and the seven children and talked about them constantly. She was present when our baby sister Maureen died.
Father Roland Calvert, OSFS, was the presider and homilist at Sister Marguerite's funeral liturgy on June 2. She had chosen the readings, and Father applied them to her life. He spoke of her "embarkation on what Chesterton calls 'our journey to the stars,' where she is in a place beyond illness and the other vicissitudes of life. We rejoice with her."