These are not typical obituaries, in fact in the world of consecrated life we refer to them as necrologies. These biographical sketches are written by the General Secretary of the congregation shortly after the death of each individual sister. The necrologies are historical documents and may contain errors, including variations in spellings and incorrect dates. The necrologies are presented here as they were written.
If you would like more information about a deceased sister please contact the archivist.
Sister Mary Claude (Winnifred Agnes Kearney) was born on Waupoos Island, Prince Edward County, the youngest of a family of ten, of Michael Kearney and Eleanor Casey. Her primary education was obtained in local schools and the first years of high school at Picton...
Mary Bernadette Kelly was born in Brockville on January 19, 1893 and baptized eleven days later by Rev. J. J. Collins. She was the eldest of a family of four - two daughters and two sons - of William Kelly and Catherine Farrell. As a child she and her sister Rhoda...
Edith Barry was born and brought up on a farm home in the parish of Morrisburg, one of a family of nine, six girls and three boys. Three of the girls embraced religious life as Sisters of Providence – Edith (Sister Mary Leonard), Elizabeth (Sister Mary Borgia) and...
Katherine Ward belonged to an Irish-Canadian family of Montreal. Her parents, Patrick Ward and Elizabeth McGuigan were both born in Ireland, met and married in Montreal and their family of four grew up in that city. Katherine was born on January 24, 1894 and baptized...
On March 13th, 1976, the Community lost one of its eldest members when Sister Mary Winnifred died in the infirmary of the Motherhouse at the age of 94 years and 10 months. Seventy years previously Norah Rourke at the age of twenty-four left her home in Ballina, County...
Sister Mary Hildegarde, eldest of ten children of Nicholas Rushman and Mary Ellen Servage, was born on December 5, 1897 at Crysler, Ontario in Alexandria diocese. She was educated by the Holy Cross Sisters and as a very young stenographer-bookkeeper in a law firm in...
Mary Veronica McGuiggan was born in Perth on January 21, 1895, and baptized six days later at St. John’s Church by Reverend Father Duffus. Her parents, Patrick McGuiggan and Catherine Quinn, belonged to pioneer families of North Burgess Township, Lanark County, a...
Eleanor Harrigan, the eldest of the four daughters of Barnabas Harrigan and Anne McGarvey, was born on January 5, 1885 in the parish of Railton, Ontario and was baptized on January 25 by Father Thomas Kelly at St. Mary’s Cathedral, Kingston. In 1912 she entered the...
Anna Catherine Way was born April 3, 1893 on a farm in the parish of Erinsville, Ontario, one of seven children of Patrick Way and Margaret Murphy Way. When at the age of twenty-one she applied for admission to the Novitiate of the Sisters of Providence, her pastor,...
Elizabeth Helena Barry was born on a farm in the parish of Morrisburg, Ontario on August 4, 1884, one of nine children of James and Sarah Barry. After graduating from the local high school she attended Ottawa Teachers’ College and taught for a few years in schools...
Too few women are granted the privilege of spending seventy-one years in the service of God in religious life. But when Sister Mary Germaine died on June 28, 1975, she had lived three months of her seventy-second year as a Sister of Providence of St. Vincent de Paul....
Margaret Mary was born at St. Raphael’s West, the cradle of Catholicism in the province of Ontario. Her parents, Allan Kennedy and Christine Macdonell, provided a splendid Catholic home for their ten children - 7 girls and 3 boys – and were rewarded by having three of...
Mary Rosalie was born on a farm in County Mayo, Quebec, on July 12, 1892 – one of a family of seven of Michael McCoy and Sarah Lavell, and baptized five days later in the Church of St. Malachy by Reverend R. McGovern. Of the seven children, four embraced religious...
Mary Stephane was born in Russia on October 23, 1908, one of the ten children of John Baumann and Elizabeth Mitlafsky. The Baumann’s immigrated to Canada in 1913 and settled on a farm at Claybank, Saskatchewan, in the vicinity of Moose Jaw. They became acquainted with...
Loretto Doyle was born on October 18, 1892 on a farm home near Chesterville, Ontario. Her parents, Peter Doyle and Sarah McMahon, died when she was still young and she went to live with a married sister several years her senior. On August 15, 1919, she entered the...
Mary Coyne was born on June 17, 1890 at Widnes, a suburb of Liverpool, England. Her father, Thomas Coyne, a mechanic, and her mother Mary Burke Coyne were Irish. In 1911 the family of four – parents, Mary and a brother – came to Canada and resided for four years in...
Frances Pender was born in Prescott, Ontario, on June 5, 1924 and baptized two weeks later in St. Mark’s Church. Her parents, Elias Pender and Mary Noune, were born in Damascus, Syria; their six children, three boys and three girls were Canadian-born, grew up and were...
Mildred Helen Stroud, daughter of Major William Allan and Mrs. Stroud, a well-known Kingston family, was born on August 14, 1899 and baptized two weeks later in St. Mary’s Cathedral. She was educated in the separate schools of the city and Notre Dame High School. At...
Mary Jane Macdonald, daughter of Archibald Macdonald and Clara Angela McPhail, both descendants of Glengarry pioneers, was born in Prescott on December 2, 1892 and baptized five days later in St. Mark’s Church by Reverend F. J. Hartigan. A grand-uncle, Dean O’Connor,...
Sister Mary Dominica (Catherine Johnson) was born at Dingle, County Kerry, Eire, on March 31, 1887; her parents were James Johnson and Mary Aherne. She was baptized in the parish church at Ferriter, Diocese of Kerry. When quite a young woman she came to Holyoke,...
