News | Live Stream | Video Library
Contact Us | Employment | Donate
(1935-2026)
Though Joan suffered a great deal in her life, she has been remembered by those who knew her best as one who cared for others and showed that care generously. She gave of herself with whatever she could do, whether it was driving someone to classes or getting something from the top shelf of a closet. … She could enjoy life and time with friends, giving them her beautiful smile.
Sister Carol Gross’s memorial Mass homily for Sister Joan Schroeder was a reflection on the unwavering, unconditional love of God for everyone and Sister Joan’s quest to know this God in her own life.
Born on July 5, 1935, in Chicago, Joan was the second child and only daughter of Clement and Genevieve (Coleman) Schroeder. Her four brothers were Richard, Lawrence, Edward, and Clement.
Her autobiography details a childhood that certainly had its challenges. Her father was a Chicago police officer who had a side job as a sheet metal worker, and so “for all purposes he was constantly out of the house either as a policeman or at his side job.” As for her mother, she had her hands full with caring for five children, four of them boys, essentially by herself.
Joan attended Queen of Angels School on Chicago’s north side, which was staffed by Adrian Dominican Sisters, and then St. Gregory High School. She was a good, hardworking student and a fine athlete, especially at baseball, and in her autobiography recalled her dad taking her to the store and letting her buy whatever she wanted – which she decided would be a beautiful black baseball bat. “He was so proud,” she said of her dad’s being able to buy the bat for her.
She graduated from St. Gregory in June 1953 and entered the Congregation later that month. When the new school year began a couple of months later, she was sent to St. Alphonsus School in Dearborn, Michigan, and spent the rest of her postulancy there. She was received as a novice that December and given the religious name Sister Francis Maureen.
Read more about Sister Joan (PDF)
Memorial gifts may be made to Adrian Dominican Sisters, 1257 East Siena Heights Drive, Adrian, MI, 49221. Funeral arrangements are being handled by Anderson-Marry Funeral Home, Adrian.
Sister's Memorial Card (PDF)
Note: To view recordings with closed captioning, they must be viewed on our public video library rather than through the links below.
Recording of Sister Joan's Memorial Mass - After clicking the link, download the recording by right-clicking on the video choosing "Save video as." Worship Aid (PDF)
Recording of Sister Joan's Ritual of Remembrance - After clicking the link, download the recording by right-clicking on the video choosing "Save video as."
Leave your comments and remembrances – if you don't see the comment box below, click on the "Read More" link.
(1934-2026)
County Donegal, Ireland, was the ancestral home of Sister Mary Ward, who was very proud of her Irish heritage. Her parents, Michael Ward and Bridget Ryan, both grew up there – he in Carrick, she in Kilcar – but they had to cross “the pond” and end up in Chicago before their paths connected.
Michael came through Ellis Island in 1922 at the age of twenty-three and went to live with his brother Patrick in Chicago. About four months later in 1923, nineteen-year-old Bridget followed suit, although her first stop in the U.S. after Ellis Island was Indianapolis, where her sister Hannah lived. She moved to Chicago soon thereafter to be closer to other family members and friends, and it was there that she and Michael met although they actually married in California after moving there to be closer to two of Bridget’s sisters and to find work.
After the birth of their first child, Michael, in California, the little family returned to Chicago, where they settled on the north side. Two more boys, James and John, came next, followed by a baby girl who did not survive, and then Mary, who was born on December 1, 1934. A snowstorm kept mother and baby in the hospital several days longer than usual, and Mary’s Aunt Margaret was enlisted to care for the other children during that time.
Over the next several years, five more children were born into the family: Vincent, Jane, Theresa, Margaret, and Susan.
Mary met the Adrian Dominican Sisters as a student at Queen of Angels School. Sister Carol Johannes, a Queen of Angels student at the same time, shared this memory of their school at Sister Mary’s wake:
The school was on Western Avenue where, all the while we were there, old, rickety, very noisy streetcars ran on rails. Early in the day it wasn’t too bad because the streetcars came infrequently. But later in the day as traffic became heavier they rumbled back and forth over and over, producing a deafening roar, so much so that if we were doing any oral reading we had to stop and wait until the streetcar passed before going on.
Read more about Sister Mary (PDF)
Recording of Sister Mary's Vigil Service - After clicking the link, download the recording by right-clicking on the video choosing "Save video as." Worship Aid (PDF)
Recording of Sister Mary's Funeral Mass - After clicking the link, download the recording by right-clicking on the video choosing "Save video as." Worship Aid (PDF)
Sister Rosita Garcia Bernardo, affectionately known as “RB” or by her preferred name, Rose, was born on May 3, 1935, in Guagua, Pampanga, Philippines, to Pedro Bernardo and Maria Garcia. She was the couple’s only child but had a half-brother, Nicolas, from her mother’s first marriage.
Pedro died when Rosita was very young, and at some point Maria and her children moved from Guagua to the municipality of Floridablanco, also in the province of Pampanga. Maria became a cook for a local family, and Rosita grew up among the family’s children.
She received her early schooling at Floridablanco Elementary and then St. Augustine Academy (now the St. Augustine Academy of Pampanga), from which she graduated in 1953.
At quite a young age, she had begun working in a very successful store her brother owned, and when she was old enough to have her own career, Nicolas opened a second, smaller, store and turned it over to her to operate. This unlikely location was where she first came into contact with the Dominican Sisters of Our Lady of Remedies.
Read more about Sister Rosita (PDF)
Memorial gifts may be made to Adrian Dominican Sisters, 1257 East Siena Heights Drive, Adrian, MI, 49221.
Recording of Sister Rosita's (and Sister Meliza's) Mass of Remembrance - After clicking the link, download the recording by right-clicking on the video choosing "Save video as."
(1936-2026)
When Sister Ann Marie Petri celebrated her Golden Jubilee in the Congregation in 2006, the Catholic Times, which at the time covered the Diocese of Lansing, wrote an article about her in its June 24-30 issue that described how she came to be an Adrian Dominican Sister.
As Sister Ann Marie told the story, when her two aunts in the Congregation, Sisters Antoinette and Seraphica, made their home visits, she loved hearing their stories, and one of them told her once that if she joined the convent, she’d see the world. She thought it would be exciting to, if not see the world, at least be missioned to California, Florida, and Chicago as her aunts had been.
“But,” she told the newspaper, “the funny thing is, I never got out of Michigan” except for three years of graduate-level study at Notre Dame.
Ann Marie Petri was born on April 21, 1936, in Detroit to Francis and Ernestine (Adey) Petri. Ernestine’s mother, Helena Blackmore, was born in England and raised in a Dominican boarding school, and when she was sixteen, the Sisters sent her to Austria to be a governess to two little girls. There, she met and married a soldier who, when Ernestine was three years old, was declared missing in action in World War I. No trace of him was ever found.
Helena and her daughter left Austria and eventually ended up in Detroit. Because of the anti-German sentiment of the time, Helena changed the family surname from Schnopf to Adey.
Ernestine met Francis in Detroit when she was sixteen years old and he twenty. They married four years later in 1934.
Read more about Sister Ann Marie (PDF)
Recording of Sister Ann Marie's Vigil Service - After clicking the link, download the recording by right-clicking on the video choosing "Save video as." Worship Aid (PDF)
Recording of Sister Ann Marie's Funeral Mass - After clicking the link, download the recording by right-clicking on the video choosing "Save video as." Worship Aid (PDF)
Our Adrian Dominican cemetery with its circular headstones is a beautiful place of rest for women who gave their lives in service to God — and a peaceful place for contemplation and remembrance.
Event Recordings (Video Library)
Dominican School Alumnae/Alumni
Become an Adrian Dominican Associate
What do you have to do to become a Sister?
Share our blog, A Sister Reflects
Sign up for the monthly Veritas newsletter (or view our other publications)
Employment opportunities
We invite you to meet some of the wonderful women who have recently crossed into eternity.