Sr. Mary Aimee Dilschneider, VHM

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Sr. Dilschneider

A funeral Mass was celebrated Aug. 3 for Visitation Sister Mary Aimee Dilschneider, a former educator, at the Visitation Monastery Chapel in Town and Country. Sister Mary Aimee died July 30 at age 93.

Baptized Catherine Rita Dilschneider, she attended Visitation Academy from sixth grade and entered the monastery the day of her high school graduation from the academy in 1935. She received the habit later in 1935, made her first profession in 1936 and professed her final vows in 1939.

Sister Mary Aimee received her bachelor's degree in mathematics from St. Louis University in 1946, graduating magna cum laude. At that time the Jesuit Fathers came by streetcar to give courses to the Visitation sisters at the monastery. When the cloister rules were changed for education in the late 1940s, she attended classes at St. Louis University and earned a master's degree in educational administration and Latin in 1951.

Sister Mary Aimee taught fifth and then sixth grade in the Lower School of Visitation Academy and then math and religion in the Upper School. She was also directress (principal) of both the Upper and Lower Schools for many years. She was the founder of the academy's Mothers and Fathers Clubs and worked with the founders of the Safari Fundraiser and her beloved alumnae, and, for many years wrote the thank-you notes for contributions to the school. Because her father had been in the construction business, she relished helping to plan the Montessori building in the late 1960s. In the Visitation Sisters' community she was assistant mistress of novices and for many years was treasurer.

Her co-religious remembered Sister Mary Aimee as a woman of prayer who spent many hours before the Blessed Sacrament and whose deepest joy was Mass. She was a strong supporter of both the charismatic prayer movement and the Focalare movement within the Church. She enjoyed keeping in touch with Visitation alumnae, excelled at cooking and swimming and enjoyed Cardinal baseball games. Despite severe impairment from a childhood illness, she pursued a full religious and academic life, according to the Visitation Sisters.

Burial was in the Visitation Order's plot at Calvary Cemetery.