Sister Rosemary Kane

Born: June 15, 1927
Entered: October 5, 1946
Died: June 18, 2026

At 6:50 AM on June 18, 2026, Sister Rosemary Teresa Kane (Sr. Katharine Francis) gently transitioned into eternity at the Maryknoll Sisters Center, Maryknoll, New York, USA. She was 99 years of age, just shy of the 100 years that was her target for leaving Bolivia, her beloved mission. Rosemary had celebrated her 80th jubilee as a Maryknoll Sister.

Rosemary Kane was born on June 15, 1927, to Katharine M. (Feurer) and Francis W. Kane in New York City. She was a sister to two brothers and a sister. While she was a child, her family moved to Rockville Center, Long Island. Rosemary graduated from St. Agnes High School in Rockville Center in 1945. Rosemary danced as a Rockette in the Radio City Music Hall, after which she entered Maryknoll on October 5, 1946, from St. Agnes Cathedral Parish at Rockville Center, New York. After making her first profession of vows in 1949, Rosemary was assigned to Hawaii, where she spent her first year on Maui teaching in the primary school. During the next nine years, she taught primary and secondary school on the island of Oahu. She made her
final vows in Hawaii on April 6, 1952.

In 1959, Rosemary returned to Maryknoll and worked in Mission Promotion for two years before studying at Maryknoll Teachers College, later known as Mary Rogers College, where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Education. Following graduation in 1963, she was assigned to St. Anthony of Padua Primary School in the South Bronx, New York, as school principal, sixth-grade teacher, and house superior. In 1964, she attended classes for Leadership in Elementary School at Hunter College, New York, NY, and Fordham University in the Bronx.

In 1967, after studying Spanish at the Maryknoll Language Institute in Cochabamba, Rosemary was assigned to Riberalta, Bolivia, in the jungle area in the northern part of the country. Her first experience in this small town on the Beni River deep in the Amazon jungle of Bolivia was visiting homes. She also went on a boat to visit villages lining the banks of the Beni River. Her ministry was to prepare the people for Mass and the sacraments.

In 1968, she co-founded Radio San Miguel in collaboration with a Maryknoll priest. The station served as the main source of communication, education, and entertainment for all the people of Riberalta, including those who lived along the Beni River. At first, the station offered literacy programs and later emphasized the expressed needs of the communities geographically isolated by the jungle and rivers. Programs covered talks by professionals on health, religion, cooperatives, group dynamics, and recordings of community meetings. In the Bolivia regional newsletter, El Chasqui of June 1977, she wrote: “The only sadness that touches my life is the extreme poverty and suffering I see about me. To know that children are dying innocent victims of malnutrition and diseases is heartbreaking. But there is hope! Little by little, with the help of Communications and improved road conditions, our little pueblo is becoming less isolated. Our medical staff has increased, and we have the best hospital facilities in our area. But it is the people who live along the rivers, so distant from Riberalta, who continue to suffer physically and economically. Love and concern do not cure or change things. This will take time and initiative. I hope and pray that our Radio Station, San Miguel, will be the instrument to effect this change. We have the tool; the challenge is ours!”

Sister Rosemary worked in collaboration with local people who eventually took over the management of the radio station. “To go forth teaching all nations is certainly part of our mission vocation; to make humanity aware of God’s presence among us, to give a sense of personal dignity to all, is also a part of it. Our programs [on Radio San Miguel] do just that,” she wrote, unaware that God was leading her elsewhere.

In 1977, the head of Indiana University’s Communication Department invited Sister Rosemary to study TV and video for two years. After studying telecommunications, Rosemary returned to Bolivia in 1979 and worked with Radio San Rafael in Cochabamba. In 1984, she became the full-time communications manager of the Catholic archdiocesan radio station. She worked there for eighteen years. Also, Sister Rosemary studied Ham Radio for six months, obtaining an operator’s license in 1983. This enabled her to contact people all over the world on behalf of missionaries who needed to contact distant relatives at a time when all communication was by landlines and “snail mail.”

Although a layman took over as manager of the radio in 2003, Rosemary continued to work with Radio San Rafael, using her communications expertise in video and photography until 2013, when a diocesan priest took over management of the station. Rosemary then turned to other ministries. She served on the Board of Directors of the Archdiocesan Institute of the Blind from 2007 to 2008. From 2008 to 2015, Rosemary collaborated with the Maryknoll High School (now Santa Ana Parish Secondary School) religious formation team. Also, she gave private English classes to students and directed the students’ year-end English Festival plays. Rosemary was the last Maryknoll sister to leave Bolivia and returned to the Maryknoll Center in New York in 2016, where she was assigned to the Center ChiRho community on July 1, 2016.

We will remember this remarkable woman for her sense of humor and the gifts she shared as a Rockette. Her dance performances delighted our Bolivian regional assemblies. Even while enduring pain, she kept her sense of humor and continued to reach out to others. Her generosity and love touched many people and covered up many of her shortcomings. She made friends, some of whom became family to her, such as the Jewish family who knew her as “sis.” She always had a sense of humor.

We are grateful to the sisters, nurses, and aides who accompanied Rosemary during her final days. May God bless you abundantly for your kindness and love. We also thank her family, who are accompanying us as we send our sister to her final home and mission.

Welcome to our brother, Father Dave Labuda, who will be the celebrant for Rosemary’s Mass of the Resurrection.