Memorial Mass to be celebrated Jan. 15 for Sr. M. Damien Francois
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A memorial Mass will be celebrated Saturday, Jan. 15, for Sister M. Damien Francois, a longtime obstetrics nurse and nursing educator and member of the Franciscan Sisters of Mary. The Mass will take place at 4:30 p.m. at the Veronica House Chapel at the Sarah Community, 12284 DePaul Drive in Bridgeton.
Sister Damien died Dec. 23. She was 90 years old and a woman religious for 73 years.
Born on a farm near Nebraska City, Neb., she entered the Sisters of St. Francis of Maryville, Mo., in 1937. She received the name Sister Mary Damien and pronounced her final vows in 1943. In 1987, the Sisters of St. Francis of Maryville and the Sisters of Mary reunited as the Franciscan Sisters of Mary.
Sister Damien became a registered nurse in 1944, after studying at St. Anthony Hospital School of Nursing in Oklahoma City, Okla. She earned a bachelor's degree in education from Benedictine Heights College in Tulsa, Okla., in 1956 and a master's degree in nursing from Catholic University in Washington, D.C., in 1963.
She served as a night nurse and head obstetrical nurse at St. Francis Hospital in Maryville, later returning to St. Anthony's Hospital in Oklahoma City as a nurse, administrator, instructor and director of the nursing diploma program. She also served at hospitals in North Carolina, Nebraska and at St. Francis Hospital in Maryville.
In the 1970s and '80s, she served as her community's superior, leadership councilor and infirmarian at Mount Alverno Convent in Maryville.
In 1983, she and several other women religious helped found Holy Family Services Birth Center in Weslaco, Texas, providing a safe, compassionate place for families — especially the poor — to welcome their babies, regardless of their ability to pay. She ministered there until she retired in 2006 and moved back to St. Louis. In 2010, she moved to the Sarah Community.
Sister Damien donated her body to St. Louis University School of Medicine.
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