(1933-2024)

Two unrelated coincidences – one rooted in a family’s personal story, the other a case of a priest’s seizing an opportunity when it arose – came together to bring Sister Joan Weitz to the Adrian Dominican Sisters.

Joan Marie Weitz was born November 20, 1933, to Leon and Marie (Mathien) Weitz of Lancaster, New York. She was the couple’s second child, coming three years after her brother, Leon, and was born prematurely due to Marie’s declining health.

Early the next year, Marie was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and she died in October 1936. Her husband and their two small children moved to his parents’ home in nearby Buffalo, where “being the first grandchildren and having our mother die so young, we received a great deal of attention,” Sister Joan wrote in her autobiography. “I was told I was especially spoiled!”

Sister Joan remembered her grandmother Anna as strict but loving and faith-filled as well, and in her autobiography recalled an amusing story: once when it was time for her to go to bed, she declared it was still light outside … and her grandmother’s response was that she would make it dark, as she pulled down the shade.

Sister Joan’s father remarried a year or so after Marie’s death. His new wife, Clinetta, already had a son, and within about five years, two more children, a boy and a girl, were born into the family. By that time, the Weitzes were living in Cheektowaga, New York, where they moved the summer after Joan completed third grade. At the time there was no Catholic parish nearby, so the children were enrolled in public school.

Read more about Sister Joan (PDF)

 

Memorial gifts may be made to Adrian Dominican Sisters, 1257 East Siena Heights Drive, Adrian, MI, 49221. 

Sister's Memorial Card (PDF)

 

 

LEFT: Marie Weitz holds her daughter, Joan, 1934. MIDDLE LEFT: Eighth-grade photo, Cleveland Hill Middle School, Cheektowaga, New York, 1946. MIDDLE RIGHT: At St. Mary School, Iron Mountain, Michigan, 1957. RIGHT: Sister Joan (then Sister Marie Leon) shows off Silver during a home visit.

LEFT: Sister Marie Leon with her father Leon and stepmother Clinetta. RIGHT:  From left, Sisters Joan Weitz and Anneliese Sinnott. 

LEFT: The Weitz siblings, oldest to youngest, left to right: Robert, Carol, Sister Joan, Don, and Leon at the wedding of Carol’s daughter. RIGHT: Gathering during the 1967 Year of Renewal are, from left, Sisters David Mary (Angela) Susalla, Marie Leon (Joan) Weitz, James Claret (Nancy) Fischer, and Mary Alan Stuart.

LEFT: Sister Marie Leon with her class at Mother of Divine Grade School, Buffalo, New York, 1964. RIGHT: Members of the 2001 Golden Jubilee Crowd are: back row, from left, Anne Beauvais, Joan Weitz, Nancy Fischer, Mary Alice Naour, Helen Belsito, Mary Louise Head, Patricia Eileen Consier, Patricia Walsh, and Celeste Mary Bourke; middle row, from left, Sisters Alan Stuart, Jane Robert Stuckel, Thomas Leo Monahan, Helen Laier, Patricia Dolan, Diana Pellegrino, Angela Susalla, Barbara Ann Hehr, and Mary Catherine Nolan; and front row, from left, Sisters Betty Lou Myers, Robert Irene Buchanan, Marilyn Foster, Marion Coppe, June Racicot, Veronica Gonthier, and Patricia Spangler.

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