Sr. M. Francis Borgia Stauder, SSND

Printer-friendly versionSend to friend

A funeral Mass was celebrated June 21 for Sister M. Francis Borgia Stauder in the School Sisters of Notre Dame Theresa Center chapel in south St. Louis County.

Sister Francis Borgia, a School Sister of Notre Dame for 79 years, died June 17 at Anna House at The Sarah Community in Bridgeton. She was 101 and a former provincial leader, college professor, school superintendent and spiritual director.

A native of Witt, Ill., she entered the School Sisters of Notre Dame in 1930. She professed first vows in 1933 and final vows in 1939. She earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from St. Louis University in 1937 and a master's in mathematics in 1943 and a doctorate in mathematics in 1947 from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

Sister Francis Borgia was provincial leader of the SSNDs' former St. Louis Province from 1965-71, elected the day Vatican Council II closed.

A profound scholar, Sister Francis Borgia discovered the Stauder Theorem in Mathematics during the course of her doctoral work.

In the 1930s, Sister Francis Borgia taugh at Our Lady of Sorrows in south St. Louis, St. Joseph in Farmington and St. Mary of the Pines, Chatawa, Miss. From 1937-45, she taught at St. Francis Borgia High School in Washington. She also taught mathematics at the former Le Clerc College in Belleville, Ill., for two years.

In 1949, Sister Francis Borgia was hired as the first superintendent for the newly organized Westphalia, Mo., R-3 district schools, and was principal of the high school in Westphalia. She also was administrator for Aviston Community High School in Aviston, Ill. In 1954, she began 16 years of teaching mathematics at the former Notre Dame College in St. Louis.

In the early 1970s, Sister Francis Borgia coordinated the work of SSND St. Louis Province volunteer translators of the letters of the congregation's foundress, Blessed Theresa of Jesus Gerhardinger, she later gave classes on SSND heritage and continued as a retreat and spiritual director until her retirement.

She is survived by a brother, Maurice Stauder of Witt, Ill. Burial was in the Sancta Maria in Ripa cemetery.