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Sister Mary Grace Krieger, MM
Born: June 19, 1924
Entered: September 4, 1948
Died: July 8, 2024
On the door to her room, Mary Grace Krieger had a colorful poster with the words, “I choose joy!” No doubt, there was joy for Mary Grace around 5 am on Monday, July 8, 2024, when she passed to fullness of life, meeting her God face-to-face. Mary Grace had turned 100 just weeks before her death, having been a Maryknoll Sister for 76 years. In her ever-thoughtful way, she left us an outline of a letter, written in 2015, giving us what she called “the facts of her life.” She began,
My dear Family, Sisters and Friends,
How does one begin to thank God for the wonderful gift of life? How does one begin to thank all those who have been a part of that life, who have helped to shape it, who have been a part of the discovery of God in one’s life?
My birth on June 19, 1924, was into a Bohemian/Czech-American family in St. Louis, Missouri. My parents, John Joseph Krieger and Agnes Mary Touzinsky, were loving parents devoted to their family of three: John Louis, Agnes Mary and Mary Grace. My brother, now deceased, became a doctor, married Anne Webb and had 4 children, Mary, Carol, John and Paul, who has two children Adeline and Elizabeth. My sister became a Maryknoll Sister.
We attended grade school in our parish, St. Mary Magdalen, where I graduated in 1937. Agnes and I both went to Xavier High Girls School, from which I graduated in 1941, and later to Harris Teachers College, where I earned a B.A. in Education in 1946. All three of us were very active in the parish Magdalen Club, a young adults group.
My teaching experience in public schools was, by choice, in a neighborhood of tenements and housing projects, among people who were poor. My sister and I did so many things together, it was not surprising to family and friends that we made the decision to enter Maryknoll at the same time. We entered on September 4, 1948, and at formal Reception on March 7, 1949, we received religious names. I became Sister Grace Marie, and Agnes, Sister Rose Andree. After First Profession of Vows on March 7, 1951, we received mission assignments to opposite ends of the world – Rose Andree to Chile and I to the Philippines. In the Philippines, I was sent first to Maryknoll College in Manila from 1951-1954 and then to the School of St. John Baptist in Jimenez, Misamis Occidental from 1954-1961. I made Final Profession of Vows in Manila on March 7, 1954.
In 1961, I returned to the U.S. to be Assistant Novice Mistress, working with Postulants entering at Maryknoll, New York, until 1964, and from 1964-1967 in Topsfield, Massachusetts. The openness and candor of the young women entering made a deep impression on me, and many of these women continue to be friends and play an influential role in my life.
In 1967, I was assigned to the Maryknoll Sisters Chinese Center in Boston, moving later to Roxbury, Massachusetts, as part of the Urban Sisters Education Task Force. This intercommunity group of Sisters devoted themselves to education in parochial schools located in the African-American community, and to the promotion of inter-racial understanding. These were years of total immersion in another culture, living first in a low-income housing project with a community of Maryknoll Sisters, and later with a group of African-American Sisters, all of us from different religious communities. In 1970, I worked in the Boston Model Cities Program in leadership training for parents in the African-American and Hispanic communities. While there, I attended Boston University and in 1971 received a Master of Education degree with concentration in Adult Education. The Eastern U.S. Region of the Maryknoll Sisters was being formed at this time and I served on the Regional Governing Board and as Financial Director from 1972-1976.
In 1976, I was invited to work with the Bishop of Benin City in Nigeria, West Africa, as a teacher in the formation program for a newly established religious congregation of Nigerian women. Unfortunately, my stay was for only a few months, due to visa difficulties.
In 1977, I went to John XXIII School, a consolidated elementary school in the African-American and Hispanic communities in Dallas, Texas, where I served as an organizational consultant to the Parent School Board and to the Principal. Part-time, I also coordinated an education program for mentally challenged persons, their family members, and for professionals working in this field.
Returning to St. Louis in 1980 to help care for our elderly mother, I accepted a position in the Archdiocese of St. Louis as Executive Secretary of the newly established Catholic Commission for the Handicapped, later named the Catholic Office of Disability Ministry, dedicated to full inclusion of mentally and physically challenged persons in parish and community life. (Note: Mary Grace’s file attests to various Civic and other awards granted her for this work.)
In 1991, I was named Director of the new Maryknoll Mission Archives, overseeing the consolidation of the records of the Maryknoll Sisters Congregation and the Maryknoll Society of Priests and Brothers, which at the time included the Lay Missioners (later Maryknoll Lay Missioners). Working in this collaborative project gave me wonderful insights into the total Maryknoll. At the same time, I was asked to be the Congregation’s liaison with Full Circle, the organization of former Maryknoll Sisters.
In 1997, as a new “retiree,” living with a small Maryknoll Sisters Community in Yonkers, New York, I volunteered in the Congregation Personnel Department, helping to address retirement matters; served as Finance Person for the Eastern U.S. Region; worked on the History Project of the Eastern Region; and was active with the Maryknoll Affiliates, Full Circle and Pax Christi. In 2012, I returned from my small Maryknoll Yonkers, New York, community, to live at Maryknoll, New York, first in the Chi Rho Community, and in 2019, the Eden Community.
My ministries have been diverse – many kinds, many places, yet for me there is a common thread – my belief that every person created by God has gifts to be shared with others. In this Eucharistic Liturgy, let us join in thanksgiving for my life, which has been so blessed by God, my family, Maryknoll, friends, and the people with whom I have lived and worked.
Thus ends Mary Grace’s “facts.” As she requested, we join our thoughts and prayers with her now, welcoming Maryknoll Father John Lange who will preside the Eucharist, as we give thanks for Mary Grace’s long and loving life among us.