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(1942-2023)
The cover of the worship aid for Sister Judy Bisignano’s Memorial Mass shows a picture Sister Judy took of a village in the Amazon rainforest of Ecuador. Her first visit to the Achuar people of that region in 2009 changed her life and set her spirituality on a whole new path.
Judith Ann Bisignano was born May 3, 1942, in Des Moines, Iowa, to Alphonse and Catherine (Dwyer) Bisignano. She was the fourth of five children, the others being Joe, Jim, Mary Kay, and John.
Alphonse, also known as “Babe,” was the owner of Babe’s Restaurant, a Des Moines fixture for half a century. He was a boxer and wrestler before becoming a restauranteur. Catherine, as Irish by descent as Alphonse was Italian and as quiet as he was gregarious, was an avid reader who used books, newspapers, and magazines to pursue a lifelong quest for education.
Judy met the Adrian Dominican Sisters during elementary school when she attended St. Augustin School. She spent a great deal of time at the convent, finding the Sisters welcoming and kind, and although her high school education came with the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (the BVM Sisters) at St. Joseph Academy in Des Moines, she decided she wanted to be an Adrian Dominican Sister. Her sister, Mary Kay, did join the BVMs, but died at the age of just twenty-three of Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Memorial gifts may be made to Adrian Dominican Sisters, 1257 East Siena Heights Drive, Adrian, Michigan, 49221.
Read more about Sister Judith (PDF).
Sister's Memorial Card (PDF)
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(1930-2023)
If it were not for missing his ship, Patrick Ahern might well have perished in the North Atlantic on his way to America.
In April 1912, Patrick, a native of County Kerry, Ireland, was supposed to be on the RMS Titanic, but he missed the sailing and instead got on the RMS Mauretania, which arrived in Queenstown, Ireland, a few days behind the Titanic.
Once in the United States, he traveled to Chicago to live with a cousin and got a job at the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad. A few years later, he met Jane Condon, a Chicago native who worked as a newspaper proofreader, and the two married in 1921. Over time, eight Ahern children – four boys and four girls – entered the world; besides Catherine, there were Marie, John, Patrick, Jane, Eugene, Gerald, and Leona.
Catherine Lorraine, the fifth of the children, was born on March 27, 1930, right after the biggest snowstorm in Chicago history. More than nineteen inches fell in the two days before her birth, with drifts leaving snow as “high as the back fence,” she wrote in her autobiography.
“Once I was born and the crying began, my four-year-old brother said to my dad, ‘Put her on the floor and let her crawl.’ That set the stage for great competition for a lifetime,” her autobiography continued.
Read more about Sister Catherine (PDF).
When sisters speak of Eileen, they speak of her kindness and how nice she was to live with. We have heard how kind she was to the children she taught, even when she was principal and had to discipline the children. Now, seventy-five-plus years later, her life is changed, not ended. Her body is transformed into that glorious body promised by Jesus, and she lives on in that place of eternal happiness and peace.
Sister Maria Goretti Browne was referring here to Sister Eileen Meyers, for whom she was preaching the homily at the memorial Mass after Sister Eileen’s death.
Eileen Mary Meyers was the second oldest and the first girl of ten children – the others being Ed, Don, Bernie, Ken, Marie, Marilyn, Dorothy, and Loretta, and a boy who died in infancy – born to Herbert and Mabel (Distelrath) Meyers. She arrived in the world on November 26, 1930, at the family’s home in St. Clair, Michigan.
Herbert was a farmer until he and Mabel married, at which point he went to work for the Diamond Crystal Salt Company in St. Clair. Eileen began her schooling at St. Mary School, where she was taught by Adrian Dominican Sisters, but the family soon moved to one of two farms owned by Mabel’s father, and Herbert took up farming again.
Several years in two country schools followed, with Eileen taking religious education classes from the Adrian Dominican Sisters. Somewhere along the way, she felt called to religious life.
Read more about Sister Eileen (PDF).
(1931-2023)
Jeanette Jabour’s family history was always a source of great pride to her. Her parents, Kalil and Anesa (Michael) Jabour, were born in Beirut, which today is in Lebanon but at the time was part of Syria. The couple met and married there. Around the time their first child, a boy, was born (he died about a year and a half later), Kalil and several of his brothers decided to flee their homeland because there was a war going on between Syrian and Lebanese factions and the Syrians were conscripting Lebanese men to fight on their side. It was deemed safe to leave women and children behind because the Muslim Syrians would not harm them due to their religious beliefs, so the men escaped in a small boat across the Mediterranean to France. A long and winding journey then took them through Africa, South and Central America, and Connecticut, and finally, they settled in Mishawaka, Indiana. A year after their escape, the situation back home had stabilized enough that Kalil and the other married men were able to return to Beirut to bring their families to America. A second Jabour son was born in Mishawaka, and then the family moved to Detroit, where seven more children were born, including Jeanette, the youngest. The son born in Indiana died at about 18 months of age, leaving Joe, Nick, Hank, Sam, Nell, Sabina, and Jeanette to grow up together. Jeanette was the only one of all the Jabour children to be born in a hospital. Kalil had found a job at the Ford Motor Company when the family first came to Detroit, but with the Great Depression raging, he had been laid off, and Henry Ford himself agreed to cover the cost of Jeanette’s birth as long as she was born in Henry Ford Hospital.
Read more about Sister Jeanette. (PDF)
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