SISTER GEORGINA MARIE BOWERS
1918-2007

When Sister Georgina Marie Bowers celebrated her Silver Jubilee in Douglas, Arizona, on Saturday, April 8, 1961, she was ministering at Loretto School as a teacher of junior high students. In the Sunday Bulletin of St. Luke Church, Douglas, appeared a writeup entitled “Hail to a Valiant Woman.” In part, it read:

Sister Georgina has given a good slice of her life to this Diocese by her work in Casa Grande and here in Douglas. We owe her a debt of gratitude. She’ll blush when she reads this, but in our book she is a valiant woman, full of wisdom, prudence, and patience, and these gifts and virtues she has sprinkled with a deep faith and a good sense of humor.

The Dominican Sister who was praised in this way was born Louise Bowers. She was one of the five children (Louise, James, Peggy, Betty, and Georgina) parented by George M. and Elizabeth (Gill) Bowers of Chicago, and came into the world on June 18, 1918. Elizabeth Gill, her mother, was from Ireland. George Bowers was a native Chicagoan, but in his young years had lived for a time in Ireland. After his marriage, he worked as a building superintendent, and provided a good life for his family.

Louise and her siblings attended Queen of Angels School with the Adrian Dominican Sisters. She graduated from eighth grade in 1932, and progressed to St. Benedict High School for two years. These two years included instruction in typewriting and other business courses.

She was very much attracted to her Dominican teachers—to the white habit and the Dominican lifestyle—and very desirous of joining them. She waited, however, until the end of her sophomore year. On June 20, 1934, two days after her sixteenth birthday, she arrived in Adrian and received the postulant’s veil from Mother Mary Gerald Barry, who was just finishing her first year as Mother General of the Adrian Congregation. Two weeks after Louise’s entrance, the death of her seven-year-old sister Georgina brought sorrow into her postulate. As her religious name, Louise asked for the name “Georgina Marie,” for both her sister and her father. She wrote that her youth, the sudden loss of her sister, and being away from her family made her formation years difficult. She felt, however, that God was calling her and she persevered.

Louise was a postulant for more than a year. She wrote that the number in her group was small, and so they spent fourteen months in the postulate. With her group, she received the veil and her religious name on August 13, 1935, entered into the required canonical novitiate year, and was professed on August 17, 1936. Within a short time after profession, she was in a car for Detroit, where she taught middle grade students at St. Ambrose School for two years. At the wake, Sister Joan Liberty remembered those years. “She was my teacher when I was in fourth and fifth grade at St. Ambrose in Detroit. All the kids loved her—everyone adored her.”

When she left St. Ambrose, Sister Georgina was transferred to Precious Blood School for three years. In 1943 she taught primary children for a year at St. Mary School in St. Clair, Michigan. Illness had attacked her, and the next year she was assigned to St. Lawrence in Cleveland, Ohio. She taught there for only the first semester, and during the second semester received treatment at the Cleveland Clinic.

It may be that she had contracted tuberculosis, for beginning with 1945 she spent eleven years in Casa Grande, Arizona, at St. Anthony School. In 1950 she became superior of the sisters and principal of the school. About this ministry, she wrote: “Casa Grande holds a very dear place in my heart. Poor simple people, who had so little, which made the little we had seem so much.”

As a result of summer study under the auspices of Siena Heights College (now University) in Adrian, she earned a bachelor’s degree with a major in history and minors in English and French. The College awarded her this degree in August 1951.

In 1956, when her successful six-year administrative term in Casa Grande ended, she was brought back to the Midwest and assigned to the middle grades at St. Bridget in Loves Park, Illinois. Sister Patricia McCarty was also missioned there, and she remembered Sister Georgina Marie as a mentor for many young sisters, a wisdom woman, kind, loving, and serene—and also “a suffering servant.”

The assignment in Loves Park lasted only two years. Sister Georgina Marie returned to Arizona as a junior high teacher at Loretto School in Douglas, where she earned the praise quoted above. It was also during this time, in 1960, that she lost her father.

After four years, she moved to St. Mary in Kingman, and again served as superior and principal. In the April 1973 issue of the Mohave newspaper, a story by Sadie Pearl Duncan appeared. She wrote about the 1960s in Kingman and about a small maladjusted Indian boy named Cee. At that time, Sadie was in charge of the Head Start Program, and Head Start was allowed to use the facilities of St. Mary School. Cee was one of their students.

Sadie had never known sisters, and was inclined to be afraid of them. When she met Sister Georgina Marie, who was helping in the Head Start Program, she lost that fear. Compassionate, understanding teachers were needed for Head Start, teachers who would get involved in solving problems for individual children, and Sadie wrote that Sister Georgina Marie was one of these “rare jewels.”

Cee had trouble eating. He was a messy eater, and so was frequently sick. He misbehaved constantly, ran away, and in general caused trouble. His teacher put him out of her class, and refused to take him back. So Sister Georgina Marie took him into her class, though she was teaching the older children. She also discovered the reason for his eating problems. He had never learned to chew his food—he swallowed it whole. While he was with Sister Georgina Marie, his behavior improved. In 1966, when Sadie wrote her yearly report, she began it by writing:

DEDICATION: to Sister Georgina, to whom I desire to say, “The little Cees are not the only ones who gained from their association with you during the weeks of Head Start. I, myself, was inspired and my life was enriched by the experience of working with you while you worked with Head Starters.”

In 1966 Sister Georgina Marie left Kingman and accepted the position of secretary-treasurer at Holy Cross Provincial House in Santa Cruz, California.

Again in 1970 illness recurred, and she was forced to take treatments and rest for a year. She spent that year at St. Joseph Convent in Las Vegas, Nevada, and returned to Adrian to recuperate during the summer. Sister Noella Marie McLeod shared some memories from that time. The two of them were living in the upstairs community of Roncalli that summer. Before going to class, Sister Noella Marie would get Sister Georgina Marie settled on the porch for the morning, and then see that she had her lunch. Then Sister Georgina Marie would go to bed for the afternoon, while Sister Noella Marie returned to class. When appointments were distributed, Sister Georgina Marie, to her surprise, was assigned as assistant superior of Maria.

In 1972 the Catholic Hospital Association awarded Sister Georginia Marie a certificate in pastoral ministry, and in 1973 she earned a certificate in gerontology from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Advised to leave the classroom, in 1973 Sister Georgina returned to the Southwestern part of the country, where she again spent a year at St. Anthony in Casa Grande, Arizona, this time as Relligious Education Coordinator, and a year at Holy Spirit Parish in Tempe as parish secretary and Assistant Religious Education Coordinator. Once more her health failed, and two years of treatment and rest were necessary. During this time she again resided at St. Joseph Convent in Las Vegas, Nevada.

In 1980, knowing that less strenuous work would be better for her, she served a year as bookkeeper at Bourgade High School in Phoenix, Arizona; then traveled to California where she served three years as office assistant at St. Raphael in Los Angeles. For the following fourteen years she volunteered her services to St. Rose Dominican Hospital in Henderson, Nevada. The death of her brother James in 1995 brought another period of sadness into her life.

Sister Janice Scholl sent a message to the wake. She wrote:

In 1996, when I was hired at St. Rose in Henderson, she invited me and my two cats to live with her. While cats were not her favorites, she soon came to love having them around. One even became her lap cat. One time she called me at work because she couldn’t find one of the cats. She had looked all over the house, and thought he had gotten out. I came home to look for him, and didn’t he meander out from one of the bedrooms where he had been sleeping under a bed. While she was relieved, she shook her finger at him and said, “Don’t ever do this again!” And he never did. She enjoyed their company, and I certainly enjoyed her company. I will always remember her as a gracious, loving, and kind person—and my friend.

In 1998 Sister Georgina Marie left the hospital and moved in with her sister Peggy in Scottsdale, Arizona. The two sisters consoled each other at the death of their mother, who must have been in her late nineties, that year. They lived together for the following eight years.

Sister Georgina Marie also spent some months in a rehabilitation center there. She wrote that she was the first nun to be treated in that center, and that many of the other people there had never met a nun. So she became very conscious of living the Dominican vision among people of many different beliefs. About her life after leaving the rehabilitation center, she wrote that she wondered what she would do for ministry. This question, however, was soon solved, since residents of the apartment building began to come to her with their problems. She found her days very full.

In August 2006 she returned to Adrian. Death came to her on the Wednesday before Holy Thursday on April 4, 2007, not quite two months before her eighty-ninth birthday. In spite of her struggle with illness, she had attained this advanced age.

A wake-remembrance service was held for Sister Georgina in St. Catherine Chapel on April 9, the Monday after Easter Sunday. Sister Catherine Ormond Olds, Prioress of Dominican West Mission Chapter, opened the service and greeted the members of Sister Georgina Marie’s family who were present: her sisters Peggy and Betty, several nieces and nephews, and great nieces and nephews. She summarized Sister Georgina Marie’s life and ministry, and said in part:

Sister Georgina Marie was called home to her God during Holy Week, and we celebrate her wake and funeral during Easter week—how significant—for her life was filled with deaths, resurrections, and in-between times! Tonight we celebrate her life in and among us, and we fluctuate between laughter and tears, for she has touched us deeply.

Jack Toomey, Sister Georgina Marie’s nephew, spoke for the family. He thanked the sisters for the care given to Sister Georgina Marie, and for making the family’s stay so pleasant during this hard time.

Sister Noella Marie McLeod shared some memories.

I had the privilege of bringing her home here last July. We had a great visit on the plane. I asked her how long she had been ill. She said that she had never been pain-free since she was twenty-seven years old.

She liked McDonald’s . . . and the last meal I had with her was in 1999 on the way to Adrian. Every time I see those golden arches I think of her. She was the kind of person by whom you wanted to sit and drink in her wisdom. I had the privilege of doing that for many years.

Sister Joan Sustersic, Prioress of Holy Rosary Mission Chapter, also shared.

When she came to Adrian I invited her into Holy Rosary Chapter. She didn’t make the change from the Western Chapter, but from time to time, she and I would chat.

Wednesday morning her condition changed, and I was told that she was dying. So I sat with her, and so did some of the other sisters. . . . At about 5:00 her sister Betty came from Chicago, talked with her, and thought that she had heard. Then Sister Donna [ Markham] came in, and we sang the “Salve.” As we finished singing, we realized that Sister Georgina Marie had gone to God.

Sister Joan Liberty reminisced about her days in grade school, and her reputation as a mischievous young person. After grade school, she kept in touch with Sister Georgina Marie, and eventually entered the Congregation.

Some time after I entered, I was appointed superior in a house where there were nine sisters. I called her and told her that the Community had lost it—I was appointed a superior. I didn’t know whether I could do it. She told me that I could do it. That was the way she was. She was like that with every young person. It was always, “You know, you’ve got what it takes!” I’ll be forever grateful to her for helping me turn my life around.

Sister Georgina Marie’s funeral liturgy was celebrated on April 10, 2007, with Father Roland Calvert as presider and homilist. She was then laid to rest in the Congregational cemetery.