Sister Patricia Wiley
1928-2011
About her birth, Sister Patricia Wiley wrote:
From my mother’s womb I was received, loved, and cared for by Cecilia (mom), James (dad), Jimmy (brother), and Eileen (sister) on a cold winter day, February 11, 1928, in Gallup, New Mexico.
James Wiley was from Jones County, Texas, and of German ancestry. He left home at the age of sixteen, wandered through the Southwest, joined the United States Army, and served in the territory of Arizona. When he was discharged with the rank of Sergeant, he found a position as brakeman on the Santa Fe Railroad. Cecilia Kohl was from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, also with a German background. She became a Harvey girl, and worked in the restaurants that serviced the Santa Fe Railroad passengers and employees. The two met in Williams, Arizona, and married.
A few years after their marriage, and following the births of two children, there was a train wreck for which James Wiley was blamed and he lost his job. He took his family to Gallup, New Mexico, and opened a restaurant that they called “The Eagle’s Nest.” Misfortune followed the Wileys there also. The restaurant burned, and the family moved to Winslow, Arizona. James Wiley’s name was cleared, and the Santa Fe Railroad employed him again, this time as an engineer. He served the railroad for forty-eight years. It was in Winslow that the Wiley’s last child, Robert, was born.
Patricia was educated in Winslow’s public schools, and received religious instruction in the summer classes held for those preparing to receive the Sacraments. She spent two years at Washington School, and then transferred to Lincoln School. Her high school years were spent at Winslow High School, and she graduated in June 1946. She wrote that she was an indifferent student and that her worst grade was in Latin. She received a “D.” During these years she worked part-time in a grocery store and a movie house.
After graduation, she obtained full-time work at Bailey’s Flower Shop and Greenhouse. The different varieties of flowers and the mystery of their growth fascinated her and prompted her to attend Bright’s School of Floristry in Chicago, with hopes of buying into the business. This was obviously not God’s plan for her, however. One evening, while she and her sister Eileen were doing the dishes, she said to Eileen, “Eileen, I am going to become a nun!” While Eileen was still laughing, Patricia called the convent and made an appointment to see one of the sisters. The thought “Why me?” kept running through her mind. At first, neither her parents nor the parish priest believed that she was in earnest. Eileen, however, supported her decision. The needed linens that Patricia took with her to Adrian came from Eileen’s hope chest.
Patricia entered the Congregation on June 26, 1948, from St. Joseph Parish in Winslow, Arizona. She wrote that she learned the required prayers as she traveled alone on the train to Adrian. As a postulant, she learned about novenas, discovered St. Martin de Porres, and followed all the rituals. With her group she received the habit and her religious name (Sister James Cecile) on December 30. She wrote that during the summer her high school Latin teacher, who gave her the “D,” came to Adrian to see her in Holy Rosary Chapel, chanting in Latin with all the other sisters in white.
She professed her first vows on December 31, 1949. Her first assignments kept her in the Midwest with middle grade and junior high students: two and a half years at St. Joseph in Rockdale, Illinois, and a year at Guardian Angels in Clawson, Michigan.
In 1953 she was sent back to the Southwest, to Holy Cross in Santa Cruz, California, where she had a taste of teaching primary students, and then moved to the middle grades. Also, during this time she, the “indifferent student,” studied at Siena Heights College in Adrian during the summers and received a bachelor’s degree in July 1956 with a major in history and minors in English and Spanish. In 1962 she was back in Arizona as a middle-grade teacher at St. Patrick in Bisbee. A period of sadness was hers when her father became ill and died in January 1965. A happier occasion for her was the reception of a master’s degree in education from the University of San Francisco in August 1963 as a result of summer study.
When she opened her appointment envelope in August 1965, she discovered that she was assigned as superior and principal at Sacred Heart School in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Here she underwent another time of sorrow when her mother died in January 1966. The school closed in 1970, and she moved to St. Mary School in Albuquerque, where for two years she taught and served as assistant principal.
In 1972 she was back in her home territory, Winslow, Arizona, as a teacher at her home parish, St. Joseph. After three years there, she answered a request from the Motherhouse to serve as a driver and secretary at Maria Health Care Center. During the summer before she went to Adrian, she took courses in gerontology at the University of Michigan, received a certificate, and became very much aware of and interested in the needs of the elderly. She served in this ministry for three years.
When she left Adrian she traveled to California and became a teacher at St. John of the Cross in Lemon Grove. She was drawn to this school by the fact that there was a retirement home for Adrian Dominican Sisters connected with it. Sister Margaret Reardon said at the wake:
It was a gift from God that Pat was on the staff of St. John of the Cross in Lemon Grove, California. After the first week of school the principal died suddenly. . . . I took the position of principal. Pat was the sixth grade teacher for the next five years. She did beautiful things with her children in her classroom, with the teachers on the staff, and with the retired sisters at the convent of St. John of the Cross. As usual, she was the strength of our convent.
It was at Lemon Grove that Sister Patricia became very much interested in the SUMORE Program at Seattle University, and began her summer study there. She taught in Lemon Grove for eight years, studied at Seattle University during the summers, and received a second master’s degree, this time in theology, in 1986.
She left Lemon Grove in 1986 and went to Prescott Valley, Arizona, as a pastoral minister at St. Germaine Parish, but also serving at two other parishes, St. Lawrence in Humboldt and St. Joseph in Mayer. In 1988 she retired; and, at the request of the parishioners, she established a St. Vincent de Paul Society that she described as “the most exciting, satisfying, and meaningful ministry of my religious life,” working with and caring for the poor. The Society was supported by the parishioners of the three parishes, also received some help from the Adrian Congregation, and when she left in 1994, the parishioners carried it on.
In 1994 Sister Patricia became a volunteer at St. Rose Dominican Hospital in Henderson, Nevada, and continued her volunteer work for five years. She returned to Adrian in 1999, lived in Regina Residence, worked as a volunteer in St. Catherine of Siena Library, the Adrian Rea Literacy Center, and the office of the Maintenance Department. She was not above helping in the actual work of collecting the garbage from the various floors of Regina Residence, and she sometimes referred to herself jokingly as “Queen of the Compost.” God took her to eternity on May 2, 2011, at the age of eighty-three.
A wake-remembrance service was held for Sister Patricia in St. Catherine Chapel on May 3. Sister Mary Ellen Youngblood, Prioress of Crossroads Mission Chapter, opened the service and welcomed all those who had come to bid her farewell. She summarized Sister Patricia’s life and ministry, and spoke of her last days.
At the end of March, Patricia fell in the front of Madden Hall as she returned from Holy Rosary Chapel after Mass. Her trip to the Emergency Room changed the direction of her life. While being X-rayed for a broken shoulder blade, the doctor discovered a large malignant tumor on her sternum. On April 5 she began to receive Hospice care. Her patience and humor impressed all who met and worked with her. She was consistently grateful for the smallest act of care or the largest service that may have meant a painful process. She became more and more reflective as the days passed, visited with her niece Julie and grandniece Kaitlan from Good Friday to Easter Sunday. She seemed to settle in for the final journey, needing only silence and quiet as she communed with her God.
Sister Margaret Reardon shared:
I have known Sister Patricia Wiley for over sixty-two years, and feel very privileged to have known her. She was in the crowd behind me and was an example of courage and humor right from the very beginning.
After the novitiate, our paths separated until we were traveling together with four other sisters on the train. She was going on her home visit and I was going to my assignment at St. Raphael in Los Angeles, California. On the feast of St. Dominic we reached Albuquerque. At that stop in Albuquerque, her mother got on the train with a big chicken dinner for all five of us, and we celebrated the Feast of St. Dominic that way. Her mother got off at the next stop
Sister Patricia McCarty spoke for the Prouille Mission Group.
Most of us in the Mission Group have known Patricia as she came to live with us in her retirement. She has been a stalwart soul who walked with the Prouille Mission Group and shared at a deep level. Her last formal ministry with the Mission Group was to serve us as our delegate. That loving service came to us filled with love pressed down and flowing over. All who knew her loved and cherished her.
Sister Carleen Maly, Director of the Adrian Rea Literacy Center, spoke for Arnulfo Flores. Sister Patricia tutored him twice a week until her illness intervened. He came to the wake, but asked Sister Carleen to speak for him. He had prepared written words:
She was a great teacher—real understanding. She tried to teach me how to pronounce my words and tried hard to teach me everything. Everything she did was great. We talked about everything. She liked to talk about what she had done, especially teaching children and the West. And what I had done: working in the fields, coming back and forth from Texas, then moving here to Adrian and working for twenty-seven years at Tecumseh Products where I had an accident and hurt my back.
Sister Carleen added some words of her own.
Three weeks ago Pat said she’d like to see Arnulfo, and we went up to visit her. Her first words to Arnulfo were, “You are such a man of courage, Arnulfo. I have learned so much from you.” That was SO Pat, wasn’t it? Always complimenting someone else and giving them the recognition. Thanks to all of her hard work and Arnulfo’s determination, he has improved four levels in reading and comprehension. What a gift she has been for us to emulate!
Sister Barbara Stanek shared that when she was Chapter Prioress in the West, she helped Sisters Patricia and Veronica Gonthier in their move to Adrian.
In the ensuing years, Sister Patricia never ceased to express her gratitude for being able to live here in the Dominican Life Center. For twenty-three years we were in the same Chapter, and for all the years we related in a variety of ways. She was always a model to me. An aura of serenity surrounded her. Through her relationships she showed her reverence for all life, and it is fitting that she be placed so simply into the earth to be a part of the nature and creation that she so loved.
Sister Aneesah McNamee faxed a remembrance that was read. She wrote in part:
Sister Patricia Wiley was one of the bright stars in my life when I first entered the Congregation! She was always present to me with a smile, and oftentimes a good laugh! She was so encouraging to me and affirming of my gifts—always acknowledging my contributions to the Congregation as something she treasured. . . . She always asked how I was doing and if I was happy; and always adding that her years in the Congregation have been a blessing to her and she “wouldn’t trade them for anything!” I will always be grateful for her ready smile, hearty laugh, and engaging spirit.
Sister Jean Irene McAllister sent a very short remembrance.
Patricia Jean Genevieve Wiley was a very spiritual and community-minded person with a great sense of humor and love of nature, a wonderful friend, and a delight to live with. She had a fox named “Wiley,” so named because Patricia said she was as wily as a fox.
Since Sister Patricia had requested a green burial, she was buried on May 3. She was laid to rest in the cemetery laid out in circles by Mother Camilla Madden so many years ago. Her funeral liturgy took place on May 4. Father Robert Kelly, OP, Motherhouse chaplain, was the presider and homilist.