Sister Martha Smith, CSJ

Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet Martha Smith, 82, died May 9 at Nazareth Living Center in St. Louis. She had been suffering end stage renal failure.

Martha Smith was born Sept. 7, 1928, in Kansas City, Mo., a daughter of Edmund and Anna May Smith. She and her sisters attended St. Teresa’s Academy. Martha also attended the College of St. Teresa. She entered the community of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in 1947.

After professing her vows, Sister Martha completed her bachelor’s degree in philosophy at Fontbonne College in St. Louis. She then enrolled at St. Louis University to earn her Master’s Degree and Doctorate in history.

She was a teacher all her adult life, beginning in Catholic grade schools and then high schools mostly in the St. Louis area. She taught history at Fontbonne College for one year, then in 1965, returned to Kansas City to teach history at Avila University.

She earned a Fulbright scholarship to study in India the summer before she began teaching at Avila.

In 1999, she and Dr. Carol Coburn of Avila co-authored Spirited Lives, a book about the influence religious sisters had on American culture between 1836 and 1920. The book is considered outstanding in its field.

Sister Martha retired from active teaching in 1995, and was named Professor Emerita. In 1997, she began volunteering as the manager of Avila University Library’s Special Collection. She retired to Nazareth in 2010.

The funeral Mass was held May 12 in the chapel at Nazareth Living Center. Sister Martha is survived by a sister, a brother-in-law and many nieces and nephews.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, St. Louis Province, 6400 Minnesota Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63111-2899.

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Sister Joan Marie Martin, RSM

Sister Joan Marie Martin, RSM, was a very spiritual woman with many talents. According to those who knew her, she had a twinkle in her eye and a cheery disposition that showed her beautiful spirit and her deep, deep connection to Jesus. That close relationship with God shaped her 56 years as a Sister of Mercy.

Sister Joan Marie often talked about her life in three phases: teaching, housing and chaplaincy work. “She loved each one of them and was good at each of them,” said her good friend Sister Lois Morrissey. The two sisters met as novices in the 1950s. While their ministries took them to different places, they never lost touch.

“She was an artist and she had what artists have, that interior beauty and the ability to express it through drawing,” Sister Lois said. “When she became sick, I started writing her a note every day.”

Sister Joan Marie died May 10 at Mercy Villa in Omaha, Neb. She was 75.

Born in Marshal, Mo., to Urban and Martha Martin, Sister Joan Marie attended Mercy Academy. Following graduation in 1954, she entered the Sisters of Mercy in Council Bluffs, Iowa. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from College of Saint Mary in 1963 and received a master’s degree in reading in 1975 from Cardinal Stritch College in Milwaukee, Wisc. She also earned an master’s degree in Religion from Seattle University in 1984 and a certificate in pastoral care in 1998.

Her first teaching assignment was in Omaha at St. Bernard’s School from 1959 to 1961. She taught in Omaha again from 1970 to1972 at Saint Margaret Mary’s. The rest of the teaching phase of her life was spent in Missouri Catholic schools including: St. Peter’s in Joplin (1961-1963); Holy Trinity (1963-1967), Holy Cross (1967-1969), St. Michael’s (1969-1970) and Visitation School (1975-1979) in Kansas City; and St. Mary’s (1972-1975) and St. Ann’s (1979-1982) in Independence.

In 1980, she was asked to be part of a seven-member task force to plan Mercy Housing, which is now a ministry based in Colorado and has sites throughout the nation. According to Sister Jeanne Ward, who also served on the task force, each member had to do an internship. “Sister Joan Marie went to Maine and really roughed it there the whole time,” Sister Jeanne said. “That’s where she learned many of the hands-on tasks she was so good at doing.”

That assignment began the second phase of her life – housing.

Following the internship, she was one of five members of the task force who were then part of Mercy Management Services, the organization that oversaw the housing developments in Idaho. “We had five housing sites in Boise, Twin Falls, Idaho City and American Falls, Idaho, that we were responsible for,” Sister Jeanne said. “While there were managers at each site, we all pitched in wherever we could.”

For example, in Twin Falls, Sisters Joan Marie, the late Carlyn Sullivan, Theresa Svehla and Jeanne Christensen were responsible for renovating and maintaining 20 townhomes. They painted, replaced screens, mowed the yards, cleaned apartments, and even did most of the electrical work and plumbing. “Sister Joan Marie had a great relationship with the site managers whom she supervised,” Sister Jeanne said.

It was in Idaho that she got to know Sister Michon Rozmajzl. “I was teaching in Boise and she was doing housing in Twin Falls. We spent time together often,” said Sister Michon. “She had a heart of gold. She would do anything for you and for others. And, handy, that was Sister Joan Marie. If she could do the repair, she did it.”

From Idaho, Sister Joan moved to Kansas City in 1989 where she continued her housing ministry, She served as property manager of Mercy Housing Kansas City while Sister Jeanne Christensen served as executive director.

In 1995, Sister Joan Marie joined the pastoral care staff at Mercy Medical Center in Nampa, Idaho, and entered the third phase of her life – chaplaincy. After two years there, she moved back to Missouri and became a chaplain at Saint John Medical Center in Joplin. She served in the role until 2005 when she took a sabbatical while she recovered from breast cancer. In 2006, she became a volunteer chaplain at St. Luke Northland Hospital in Kansas City, Mo. She learned in April 2010 that the cancer had spread to her bones.

From that April diagnosis until December 2010 Sister Joan continued her ministry. Sister Charlene Ross lived with and cared for Sister Joan with support from other Sisters of Mercy in Kansas City and two Mercy Associates. Sister Eleanor Castle, who is also originally from Marshall, kept in contact with Sister Joan’s family. During this time, Sister Joan was sustained by her deep faith in God. In December 2010, she moved to Mercy Villa in Omaha, where she spent the last months of her life in the company of caring sisters and staff.

Sister Joan Marie is preceded in death by her parents, Urban and Martha Martin; brothers, Bernard, Norbert, Urban (Bob) and Eugene Martin; sisters, Helen Widel, Dorothy Pollard Samson and Theresa Lang. She is survived by sister, Mildred Kempf Moore; numerous nieces, nephews, grand, great grand and great-great grand nieces and nephews.

Funeral services were held in Omaha and Marshall. The interment of her ashes will be in Marshall, Mo.

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DUBUQUE, IOWA – Sister Thomasita Ross, BVM, 89, died April 25, 2011, at Caritas Center, Dubuque, Iowa.

She was born in Kansas City, Mo., on April 7, 1922, to Thomas and Margaret Ann (O’Donnell) Ross. She entered the Sisters of Charity, BVM congregation on Sept. 8, 1939, from St. Vincent Parish, Kansas City, Mo. She professed first vows on March 19, 1942, and final vows on Aug. 15, 1947.

In the diocese of Kansas City-St. Joe, Sister Thomasita taught at O’Hara High School (1970–77 and 1980–89). She also taught in Casper, Wyo.; Hempstead, N.Y.; Jesup, Sioux City, Fort Dodge, Cedar Rapids and Dubuque, Iowa; and San José, Calif. She served as educational consultant, deputy director and regional representative for the BVM congregation in Dubuque. In retirement, she volunteered as a driver at Mount Carmel Motherhouse.

She is preceded in death by her parents; a brother, Thomas Deane; and a sister, Mary Frances Burrascano. She is survived by nieces, nephews and the Sisters of Charity, BVM, with whom she shared life for 71 years.

Services were held in Iowa and burial is in the Mount Carmel cemetery.

Memorials may be given to the Sisters of Charity, BVM Support Fund, 1100 Carmel Drive, Dubuque, Iowa 52003, or online at www.bvmcong.org/whatsnew_obits.cfm.

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Father William A. Bauman

By Kevin Kelly
Catholic Key Associate Editor

KANSAS CITY — “We do not come to meet Christ as if he were absent from the rest of our lives. We come together to deepen our awareness of, and commitment to the action of his Spirit in the whole of our lives at every moment. We come together to acknowledge the love of God poured out among us in the work if the Spirit, to stand in awe and praise. . .

“People in love make signs of love, not only to express their love but to deepen it. Love never expressed dies. Christians’ faith in Christ and in each other must be expressed in signs and symbols of celebration, or it will die.”

Though a young Father William A. Bauman wrote those words for the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Liturgy nearly 39 years ago in the landmark document “Music in Catholic Worship,” they were certainly the expression of a wide consultation of lay, clergy and religious.

And yet, they were still the vision of a deeply gifted, deeply pastoral priest that generations of Catholics in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph came to know simply as “Father Bill.”

That was the way of Father Bauman, 76, who died on Palm Sunday, April 17, barely two weeks after he celebrated his 51st anniversary of ordination to the priesthood of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

“The moment you met Father Bauman, he was calculating what your gifts were and how they could be used,” said Glenda Jacobson, who worked on the staff of St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Oakview. “He was gifted at getting you to do your job and feeling like you owned it.”

It was at St. Charles that Father Bauman had the vision for “Foundations in Ministry,” a program in which non-ordained professional staff, such as Jacobson and Benedictine Sister Esther Fangman, would train lay people to assume leadership roles in music, liturgy and the prayer life of a worshipping community.

“Bill was leadership,” Sister Esther said at Father Bauman’s vigil and prayer service on the eve of his funeral Mass of Resurrection April 25 at St. Thomas More Parish, the last parish that Father Bauman pastored before his retirement.

“He was a human being who knew his humaness, and then he embodied leadership, he embodied priesthood, he embodied being a pastor,” Sister Esther said.

Those were the heady days in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, when then-Bishop Charles Helmsing, one of the council fathers, assembled around him the best young talent in the diocese to carry out the vision of the council, in much the same way that his namesake, St. Charles Borromeo, implemented the reforms of the Council of Trent in his Archdiocese of Milan some 400 years earlier.

And when Bishop Helmsing’s successor, Bishop John J. Sullivan, came to the diocese with a vision for the systematic training of professional lay ecclesial ministers, he quickly learned of “Foundations of Ministry,” and tapped Father Bauman to be the founding director for the Center for Pastoral Life and Ministry.

Maureen Kelly, who was on the Center’s first staff, said Father Bauman had a way of bringing out the best in every one who worked with, not for, him.

“What struck me about him was how collaborative he was,” Kelly said. “He modeled on our staff what we were doing in parishes. He empowered. He listened. He changed his mind. He didn’t come up with plans and say, “This is the way we are going to do it.” He worked with us.”

Kelly said that Father Bauman sent the Center’s staff out to parishes to listen.

“It was our job to listen to the leadership in parishes, and from what we heard, we were to design classes and programs according to what they needed,” Kelly said.

“What he wanted was competent, competent lay ministers in parishes, and he always said, “competent” twice,” she said.

Jacobson said that Father Bauman once told her that as a youth, he didn’t know if he wanted to be a scientist, an engineer, or a musician.

“He said he became a priest so that he could do all of them,” she said.

He certainly had the pedigree.

Father Bauman’s father, John, was a chemical engineer and CEO of Solo Cup Co. of Grandview, which employed over 1,200 people in several states. His mother Theresa was also a chemist who taught high school chemistry for 20 years.

His brother John is professor emeritus of chemistry at University of Missouri-Columbia. His brother Joseph served on the IBM task force that developed the personal computer, and was IBM’s vice president in charge of production and marketing of the machine that continues to change the world. He later became dean of the School of Business at the University of Kansas in Lawrence.

Father Bauman’s sister, Mary Ann Yeats, is the first female district court judge in Australia, serving the Western District in Perth. His youngest sister, Linda, taught elementary school for 30 years and is married to John Shumway, a champion bass fisherman who spent many hours on the Lake of the Ozarks with his priest brother-in-law.

Shumway said he didn’t need to listen to the weather forecasts when Father Bill was on board his bass boat.

“He was so into the weather,” Shumway said. “He knew exactly where the fronts were and how they were setting up.”

Last year, at the request of Bishop Robert W. Finn, Father Bauman agreed to step out of retirement and serve as temporary administrator of one more parish, Holy Spirit in Lee’s Summit, effective Jan. 1.

Ten days later, after discovering unusually high blood sugar levels, Father Bauman’s doctors told him that an aggressive cancer was attacking his pancreas and liver. He was given two months to two years to live.

Word quickly spread around the diocese, especially to his brother priests who held Father Bauman in high esteem, and heaven was bombarded with prayers.

“There is not room enough in The Catholic Key to print all the reasons the priests of this diocese respect Bill Bauman,” said Father Bob Rost, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Hamilton and its mission, Mary Immaculate in Gallatin.

“He has been a giant in this diocese for 51 years,” Father Rost said. “If there is any liturgical mentor for priests in this diocese, he is that. We all owe him an enormous debt.”

His imprint is not only on the diocese, but on the nation. Many of the programs pioneered under Father Bauman�s leadership became national norms.

“He had us working on the catechumenate (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) before the (U.S. bishops) documents came out,” said Sister of Charity Cele Breen, who served on the Center for Pastoral Life and Ministry staff.

As pastor of St. Stephen Parish, now Our Lady of Peace, in northeast Kansas City in 1970, Father Bauman had the idea that his small parish could coordinate services and programs with two neighboring small parishes, and contacted their pastors, Father Jerry Waris at Holy Trinity and Father Ernie Gauthier at St. Michael.

“What a great idea to combine resources and work as a team,” Father Waris said in his homily at the April 24 prayer service. “Bishop Helmsing trusted him and gave us the chance to work in a collaborative way.”

It made its mark not only on parish life, but on the city of Kansas City.

The three-parish ministry team founded Northeast Cooperative Social Services, an agency serving the poor which has evolved today into the multi-service Bishop Sullivan Center, feeding hundreds of people daily and providing job training and search skills, air conditioners for the elderly, no-cost loans and emergency utility assistance among other services.

The team also got a federal grant to launch “Dial-A-Ride,” a cab-based, low cost transportation system for the elderly that has evolved into Share-A-Fare which continues today.

“These were important events,” Father Waris said. “They are recorded in the hearts of all of us who are called to be church together. We know how it was, how good it was, and what the impact it had on the lives of those we serve and our lives, and we will settle for nothing less.”

For Father Bauman and the priests and lay people he led by his example, the Second Vatican Council was not about translating the Mass into vernacular languages. It was transforming the church in service to the people.

“It was not about bells and robes,” Father Waris said. “It was about a Pentecost of fire, where we still believe that we have something to say and that leadership will listen.”

And it was about complete trust in God, Father Waris said.

“As Bill lived, so he died, emptying himself, weak, vulnerable, so he could open himself to God and the call home.”

Even as he was dying, Father Bauman taught by example. Days after his diagnosis of terminal cancer, he opened a journal on CaringBridge.org.

“Prayer seems easier, more clear-headed,” he wrote on Feb. 12, the day he began a double chemotherapy regimen in hopes of slowing the cancer’s spread.

He expressed gratitude for Benedictine Abbot Gregory Polan’s gift of a Grail Psalter which the monks of Conception Abbey had translated.

“The Psalms for me have done a wonderful job of keeping God big — immense — and in charge,” he wrote. “Giving God glory and trusting his love is certainly what it is all about now.”

Soon after, his chemotherapy regimen gave him a deeply painful, burning rash.

“It takes special effort to pray in pain, to focus on Christ as companion on the journey, to say yes to each day’s journey one day at a time,” he wrote on Feb. 22.

Five days later, still in pain, Father Bauman wrote: “Prayer is different in times too of sharp pain. I find two ways quite enriching. The first is to actually focus on the pain, letting it be my point of dying and rising. . . While it is more comforting to focus on a mountain or sunset or flowing stream, it is equally consoling to focus on a pain that is transforming me into eternal life.

“I also enjoy picking one of the Psalms. . . I read it very slowly, syllable by syllable, and sooner rather than later, a phrase or thought relates to my pain in the big picture of God’s love and glory.”

On March 1, Father Bauman recalled a retreat he gave for 8th grade students some 10 years earlier.

“One group of boys asked me the very profound question: “Father Bill, are you afraid of to die?”

“I told them that I had talked life over with Jesus every day since I was their age. Why would I be afraid to meet Christ now?”

On March 14, he wrote: “Lent moves forward with its challenge to keep asking the big questions. Just who am I? What does the future hold? What can I find to do each day to bring some joy into someone’s life?”

On March 21, less than a month before he was to die, Father Bauman wrote of a beautiful spring day.

“Something way down deep says, “Lord, could I be in charge just for today?” But I would not want to miss one of those days of which I would say: “Lord, had you made me for this day alone, it would have been worth living.”

On the morning of April 4, he wrote about attending the wedding of his youngest niece, Amy, and of celebrating his ordination anniversary.

“That kind of pushed me over the limit,” Father Bauman wrote. Hardly enough energy to sit in a chair.

“Gratitude still comes easily. Thanks to God for the life of a priest. Thanks for a wonderful family. Thanks for our church, for all who have supported me so faithfully these last 10 weeks. Pray with me now that I may keep my hands lifted up to our God in a joyful, “Come Lord Jesus,” this week.”

That evening, Father Bauman wrote his final entry:

“I will move into the Little Sisters (of the Poor, St. Jeanne Jugan Center) tomorrow. . . I look forward very much to the daily Eucharist, to sharing Communion with all of you. As Jesus is blest and broken, so may each of us in our daily bread be bread that is shared with Christ and become the one Body, growing into resurrection and life.”

The family has requested memorial contributions to the Bishop Sullivan Center, 6435 Truman Rd., Kansas City, MO 64126.

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Sister Benedict Petry, lsp

Little Sister of the Poor Benedict Petry, 95, died April 2 at the Jeanne Jugan Center, surrounded by her community of Little Sisters, residents and friends. She is survived by one sister, Mary Ann Petry, Gallup, NM, nieces and nephews, and her Little Sisters of the Poor community.

Frances Petry was born in Long Island, New York, in 1915, one of twelve children born to Joseph and Frances Olinger Petry. She was a shy child growing up, preferring to stay home with her parents and siblings. She “dearly loved children” however, so after earning her teaching credentials, Frances taught school for several years. All the while she felt an urge to do something different, so she sought out her parish priest to ask for advice.

One day he told her that he had found a place for her, she recalled in 2007. “That place was St. Anne’s Novitiate of the Little Sisters of the Poor in Queens. I thought “old people?” But when I thought about it, I realized I had always associated with the elderly.”

She entered the novitiate in October, 1940, and made her first profession of vows in 1943.When she entered the community, she left her parents and nine siblings. “My mother never said a word to stop me, even though I was leaving her with younger children to care for,” she said 66 years later.

Sister Benedict, an intrepid beggar, followed the tradition begun by Saint Jeanne Jugan, founder of the Little Sisters of the Poor. St. Jeanne begged to provide for the needs of the elderly poor in her care. She walked the roads of France, carrying a basket and knocking on doors for food, clothing, firewood or money.

Sister Benedict also knocked on doors, in Mobile, Ala., New Orleans, Nashville, St. Louis, Palatine, Ill, France, and eventually Kansas City. She learned begging by going house to house asking for money, food or clothing. She came to Kansas City in 1978, and with a companion begging sister went to markets, bakeries and stores begging for items the Little Sisters Home for the Poor needed that particular day. Begging was a 9 a.m. — noon job, seven days a week, and Sister Benedict was faithful to it for more than 50 years.

“When I was 16, I was too shy to even answer the telephone,” she said. “If my own dear mother was alive and saw me now, she wouldn’t recognize me. Begging forces one to meet lots of different people and take the ups with the downs, the yeses with the nos. The Lord grants blessings where he sees they are needed.”

She had many memories of begging, and said she was never happier than when she was begging, going about doing God’s will. No two days were ever the same. She liked begging for that reason. Sister Benedict compiled a log book of benefactors that give generously each year, and the current begging sister, Sister Christine Mary Ng, has been introducing herself to them during her nine months on the job. “I still have much to learn about our benefactors,” she said. “Many of them ask about Sister Benedict, what she is doing and how she is.”

Kansas City St. Joseph Bishop Emeritus Raymond Boland recalled that when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected pope in 2005, “I called up Sister Benedict and told her that the cardinal had telephoned me. He said he wanted to use her name. She got the biggest laugh out of that!” Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI.

Being a Little Sister of the Poor was a good life, Sister Benedict said. She was content to grow older, hoping to reach 100 years of age. “Just put me with the elderly,” she said. “I’m one of them.”

Until her last years, she rose early every day and attended Mass with her community, as well as meals, prayer and recreation. She never gave up living or smiling. She said she was once accused of being lazy since it only takes 13 facial muscles to smile and 63 to frown. But smiling cheered her and the elderly residents around her. Although her physical condition declined, Sister Benedict remained alert and cheerful until the end, Sister Beatrice Mary Scully, lsp, who knew her well, said. Her greatest happiness was to see Jeanne Jugan canonized a saint on Oct. 11, 2009 by Pope Benedict XVI.

The Funeral Mass was celebrated April 7, in the chapel at the Jeanne Jugan Center. Burial followed at St. Mary’s Cemetery. Memorial contributions may be made to the Little Sisters of the Poor, Jeanne Jugan Center, 8745 James A. Reed Road, Kansas City, Mo., 64138-4414.

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Sister Mary Gertrude Gross, OSB

CLYDE, Mo. — Benedictine Sister Mary Gertrude Gross, died Feb. 20, at Our Lady of Rickenbach healthcare facility in Clyde.

Catherine Mary Gross was born Sept. 28, 1919, in El Centro, Calif., to Swiss immigrants Dominick and Ottilia Gross. Catherine was named after both her grandmothers. She was the second of three children, having an older sister, Hilda, and a younger brother, Carl.

After high school graduation in 1937, Catherine enrolled in a business college in Sacramento. Before she completed her degree, she took a job with the State of California and later completed her business classes during night school. It took two years to receive her diploma and graduate, showing early her determination and an aptitude for business.

She frequently worked temporary jobs to gain work experience and apply her studies, including stints with the Nurses Association, the Department of Natural Resources, the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Department of Agriculture.

At the start of World War II, Catherine began working at a nearby U.S. Army base as secretary to an officer in charge of transportation, working mostly with the Western Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads. This led to a job with the Southern Pacific where she met Mr. and Mrs. J. J. Coyle, a Catholic couple. Mrs. Coyle was a close friend of the Sacramento Carmelite Nuns, a community Catherine visited regularly.

During a novena with the Carmelites, Catherine met Father O’Hara, a Paulist priest who told her about Clyde and the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration.

Drawn to Eucharistic Adoration and the life of prayer, Catherine soon visited Clyde with Mrs. Coyle and realized a calling was leading her there permanently.

She entered the Benedictine Sisters in 1947, and upon making her first monastic profession on May 29, 1949, she received the name Sister Mary Gertrude.

In 1950 she was assigned to the correspondence department to learn the crediting work. After her final monastic profession on July 12, 1954, she was appointed bookkeeper for the Clyde monastery. In 1962 she was named Treasurer General of the Congregation. She moved to the Sisters’ St. Louis monastery in 1966 when the Generalate and Novitiate were transferred there.

The General Chapter of 1968 elected her to the General Council for a six-year term. After her term ended, she returned to Clyde to work in the correspondence department then served as bookkeeper.

As part of her duties, Sister Mary Gertrude handled the property insurance for all the monasteries for more than 40 years. She also served as notary public for the community and was coordinator of the Marriage Encounter groups. She was a gracious hostess and helped serve meals and guided many of the tour groups at the monastery. She celebrated her 60th Jubilee in 2009.

After her health declined rapidly in the past year, Sister Mary Gertrude entered hospice care at Our Lady of Rickenbach in early February. She was surrounded by Sisters when she died.

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Sister of Loretto Aline Dalton, 92, died Feb. 11 at the Loretto Motherhouse Infirmary in Nerinx, Ky., where she lived.

Born April 26, 1918, in Kansas City, Mo., Mary Catherine Dalton attended Sacred Heart Elementary School, where she first met the Sisters of Loretto, and Redemptorist High School.

She had several jobs after graduation until she entered Loretto community in Nerinx, in June, 1939, and was given the name Sister Aline.

She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Loretto Heights College-Denver,

in 1951, and a Masters from St. Louis University in 1959. Sister Aline began her teaching career in Kentucky and taught at Loretto-sponsored schools in Missouri, New Mexico and Colorado, before returning to Kansas City in 1970. She joined the staff at Loretto High School, and served as treasurer for the sisters’ community until 1979.

In the spring of 1978 she took a three-month sabbatical and went to Rome, Italy. While there, she worked part-time in the Library of the Seminary Department of North American College. In 1979 she was invited to return to Rome for full-time employment. For two years she worked in the Library and then transferred to the college’s business office. She decided to return home in 1984 as she was the only Sister of Loretto in Rome.

Sister Aline worked in Denver after her return, at Holy Family School and at the Loretto Development office.

During her time at Holy Family School, Sister Aline established a Holy Family Golf Tournament. It was so well received that in 1996, she established the annual Sisters of Loretto Golf Tournament to benefit the Sisters’ Retirement Fund. The golf tournament is be renamed the Aline Dalton Memorial Golf Tournament beginning with this year’s tournament in August.

Sister Aline retired to the Loretto Center in Littleton, Col., in 2000 and managed the health Insurance for the Loretto Center Community. Then in 2004 she moved to the Loretto Motherhouse Infirmary in Nerinx, and lived there until her death.

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