HONG KONG (SE): The Maryknoll Sisters recently announced the deaths of three of its members who had at one time or another worked in China and Hong Kong. Sister Rose Bernadette Gallagher, Sister Alice Maureen Corr, and Sister Ruth Marie O’Donnell. They were all at the Maryknoll Sisters Centre, at Maryknoll, New York
Sister Alice Maureen Corr, onetime-editor of the Holy Spirit Study Centre’s China Bridge column [often published in the Sunday Examiner], died on February 24. She was 90-years-old and had been a Maryknoll Sister for 63 years. She was born in New York City on 11 November 1932. She worked for the New York Telephone Company for eight years before joining the Maryknoll congregation on 2 September 1961. She made her first profession on 24 June 1964 in Topsfield, Massachusetts.
In 1965, was assigned to Taiwan where she professed her final vows on 4 July 1971. She studied the language for a year and then worked with young girls in correctional centres in Miaoli and Taipei. She was also was involved in parish ministry in Miaoli. Later she taught English at the National Taiwan Normal University until 1974.
Sister Corr returned to Maryknoll in 1974 for congregational service and did promotion on the West Coast until 1976. In 1980, she was supervisor of the English as a Second Language Programme at the Maryknoll Seminary. During this time, she was also involved in the Fourth World Project.
From 1985 to 2007, she taught English at several universities in China, most notably Northwest University, Xian, but due to age restrictions in the country, she retired from teaching in 2007 and moved on to work at the Holy Spirit Study Centre in Hong Kong, where she remained until 2016. She wrote many China Bridge articles published in this newspaper
In 2017, Sister Corr returned to the Maryknoll Sisters Center to retire.
A Memorial Mass was celebrated on March 10 at the Maryknoll Sisters Centre.
Sister Rose Bernadette Gallagher, who served in China and Hong Kong, died on February 9 at the Maryknoll Sisters Centre, at Maryknoll, New York. She died on February 9 at 100-years-old, and had been a Maryknoll Sister for 80 years.
Sister Gallagher was born on 12 September 1922, she joined Maryknoll on 7 September 1943. She made her first profession on 7 March 1946 at Maryknoll, receiving the name Rose Bernadette. Her first assignment was to Wuchow, China, in 1948, during a very turbulent political period. She made her final vows in China on 7 March 1949.
Between 1951 and 1976 Sister Gallagher was in Hong Kong helping people who had fled to safety to the refugee settlement in Chai Wan with basic needs for food, clothing and shelter. In 1976, she returned to Maryknoll to serve in congregational service on promotion until 1977.
She received her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Theology in 1975 from Mundelein College, and also received a certificate in Chinese Literature and Culture from the Yale-Asia College in Hong Kong in 1978. In 1980, she earned a Master of Arts Degree in Political Science from the University of Chicago.
From 1982 to 1985, Sister Gallagher taught at Xian Jiaotong University teaching English teaching skills with student professors From 1985 until 1987, she taught at Beijing University, helping students master research methodology and writing skills.
Transferring to the Eastern US Region in 1988, she taught foreign students at Towson University near Baltimore, Maryland. She also taught at Notre Dame College. Assigned to Bangkok, Thailand, in 1992, she directed a Maryknoll Safe Shelter for women who had been trafficked, sold to prostitution and children left homeless.
In 2006, Sister Gallagher was assigned to Nanyangachor, in what is now South Sudan, to work with the Toposa tribal people where poverty was very evident. She was only there a short while, when she had to return to the Maryknoll Centre where she worked with the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, focusing on the empowerment of women in all phases of her life, protection for the girl/child against violence and human trafficking.
She retired to the Maryknoll Sisters Centre in 2013 where she has remained until her death. Sister Gallagher graciously donated her body to science. A memorial Mass was celebrated on February 24.
Sister Ruth Marie O’Donnell, who was once the pharmacist at Our Lady of Maryknoll Hospital in Wong Tai Sin, Hong Kong, died on February 25. She was born in Port Arthur, Ontario, Canada, on 20 August 1927.
After high school she attended the Ontario College of Pharmacy in Toronto, earning her pharmacy degree in 1950. On 10 September 1951, she joined the Maryknoll Sisters. She made her first vows on 7 March 1954 at Maryknoll and professed her final vows on 7 March 1960.
Her first assignment was to Punahou, Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1955, where she taught religion, biology, chemistry and physics to high school students until 1958. She was assigned to Kowloon, Hong Kong, in 1958, for language study and part-time ministry.
She was the pharmacist at Our Lady of Maryknoll Hospital until 1969 when she returned to the United States. For 20 years, she ministered in Boston’s Chinatown.
In 1993, Sister O’Donnell retired to Maryknoll Sisters Retirement facility in Monrovia, California, and in 1994 returned to the Maryknoll Sisters Centre, volunteering her time at St. Anne’s Church in Ossining, teaching music and pastoral work for Hispanics until 2004. She remained at the centre until her death. A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated on March 3 at the Maryknoll Sisters Centre.
May they rest in peace.
