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Sister Bede Donelan was
the co-author of Their Country’s Pride; an Anthology of Rural
Life Literature, and numerous articles in professional
publications. She was a respected lecturer on the classics,
traveled extensively in Europe and did research in Rome and
Greece. She served as president of the Minnesota Classical
Conference, first vice-president and member of the board of the
Classical Association of the Midwest and South (CAMWS), chairman
of the Minnesota State Committee on Latin Teacher Training and
chairman of the National Committee for the Recruitment of Latin
Teachers. She was one of fifty scholars chosen to attend a
planning conference for the classics in Washington, D.C. in
1965. She was appointed national coordinator of the Minnesota
Latin consultants. She was the Classical Association of the
Midwest and South honoree in 1968.
In 1968,
Sister Bede celebrated 50 years as a nun. She continued to teach
part-time at St. Teresa’s almost until her death on January 17,
1973. Sister Bede was survived by four sisters, Margaret (Mrs.
Arnold Dahl), and Kathryn (Mrs. John Cronin) of Rochester,
Gertrude (Mrs. John Eustice) of Waseca, and Ann (Mrs. Andrew
Eustice) of Faribault and a brother Thomas Donelan of
Janesville.
A
Mass of Christian Burial was offered on Friday January xx in the
Assisi Heights Chapel in Rochester. Burial took place in Calvary
Cemetery, Rochester, Minnesota. |
Agnes Cecelia Donelan was born
September 26, 1898 in Erin Township, Rice County, Minnesota
(near Montgomery). Her parents were Thomas Donelan and Mary
Ellen Lang. She acquired elementary education at the local rural
school and attended Janesville public schools for her secondary
education. She entered the postulancy of the Rochester
Franciscans in September 1916. In religious life, she took the
name Sister Mary Bede. After completing her novitiate in 1918,
she taught for a year at St. John’s School in Rochester. She
graduated from College of St. Teresa in Winona and studied at
the graduate level at the University of Michigan and Yale
University. In 1922, she joined the faculty at College of St.
Teresa where she taught classical languages. she remained on St.
Teresa's faculty until her death in 1973. |