OBITUARY

Sister Rose Kathleen Lenchanko served in Ecuador, Rome, Kalihi

By Patrick Downes | Hawaii Catholic Herald

Sacred Hearts Sister Rose Kathleen Lenchanko, the youngest child of Russian refugees to Hawaii whose talents as an educator, administrator and linguist placed her in assignments on three continents, died on Jan. 19 at Malia O Ka Malu Convent in Kaimuki. She was 81 and would have celebrated her 60th year as a religious this year.

Her final assignment was in Hawaii, as director of St. Anthony Retreat Center in Kalihi Valley.

Sister Rose Kathleen was born in Honolulu on March 4, 1928, the youngest of a family of 11 children.

More than 15 years before she was born, her parents, Niketa and Parascovia Lenchanko, had escaped with three sons from Kiev in the Ukraine, as the czar was shutting down the borders. Instead of taking the shorter but heavily guarded western route, they went east across the continent through Mongolia in an ox cart.

They found their way to Russia’s Pacific coast city of Valdivostok, a few hundred miles from Japan. They took a ship to Hawaii by way of Japan, arriving in Honolulu in 1912, with plans to continue to California or Australia. Instead they settled in the islands where five more sons and three daughters were born.

Sister Rose Kathleen grew up speaking and praying in Russian at home, while learning English in school. She attended public school for first and second grade and then enrolled in St. Theresa School in Kalihi-Palama. She credits her religious vocation to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet who taught her there.

In a 2000 interview in the Sacred Hearts Sisters provincial bulletin, “Me Ka Ohana,” she spoke of the awakening of her religious call.

“I dearly loved those sisters and there my vocation was born. A missionary calling, believe it or not! The sisters talked about missionaries helping the poor, and I was attracted to working in South America with the needy.”

It was, however, the Sacred Hearts Sisters’ ministry of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament that drew her to that congregation.

And it would be more than 20 years before Sister Rose Kathleen would fulfill her South American dream. She would first earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education and teach in schools in Hawaii and California.

She served as a teacher and administrator in Ecuador from 1972 to 1978.

“I’m happiest about the kindergarten I helped organize in a poverty-stricken area, a needed beginning which has since been remarkably expanded to a daycare center and dispensary,” she said.

Sister Rose Kathleen described her next assignment as a “bombshell” — Rome. There she assisted her congregation, which was headquartered in Rome, in communications, as secretary general and as a general councilor.

Her skills in French, Spanish and Italian earned her a job as a congregational translator and helped her gain knowledge of her international order and the workings of the Vatican.

She returned to Hawaii in 1994, and in 1995 was assigned to supervise the operation and renovation of St. Anthony Retreat Center in Kalihi Valley.

She saw the transformation of the former orphanage into a modern facility for religious and non-denominational retreatants from both Hawaii and the mainland.

Illness would prevent her from seeing her final addition to the lush valley landscape — recreation facilities and a meditation room overlooking the stream.

Administration of the retreat center was for Sister Rose Kathleen an enriching assignment.

“I find it most inspiring to see how so many in our secularized world are hungering for God and seeking him in prayer,” she said. “Observing them is like making a retreat myself.”

Sacred Hearts Sister Anne Clare DeCosta, who shared community life with her in Hawaii, said Sister Rose Kathleen’s voice in the congregation is irreplaceable.

“She not only had a historic view, but she had a panoramic view of the congregation,” Sister Anne Clare said, coming from both her world experience and her “encyclopedic mind.”

“She never ever forgot a date, a time or an event,” she said, allowing her to offer suggestions and solutions based on history and experience. “It was tremendous to have her in the room.”

But for all her intellect, Sister Rose Kathleen possessed a “quiet humility,” Sister Anne Clare said.

Sister Anne Clare said she did not know the “extent of her poverty” until she went into Sister Rose Kathleen’s room after she became ill.

“It was pure poverty,” she said. “She lived the simplicity of that room. There was nothing cluttered, nothing that she didn’t need, down to the number of blouses and skirts. I was totally in awe.”

Funeral services were held on Jan. 29 and 30 at Malia O Ka Malu Convent and Sacred Hearts Academy Chapel. She was buried Jan. 30 at Hawaiian Memorial Park in Kaneohe.

She is survived by her sister Katherine Medeiros, nephews and nieces and grand nieces and nephews.