Missionary educator taught here for more than 30 years
Maryknoll Sister Helen Louise Gleason, who spent half of her 63 years in religious life as a teacher in Hawaii parish schools, died Sept. 11 at Maryknoll Sisters Center, Maryknoll, New York. She was 85.
Sister Helen was assigned to Hawaii three times, in 1956, 1980 and 1984, to teach in grade schools on Oahu and Maui. She also served in the Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, and on Indian reservations in Minnesota.
Sister Helen was born on Jan. 20, 1929, in Cloquet, Minnesota, one of 11 children of William and Exilia Demers Gleason. She was a descendant on her mother’s side of two famous North American explorers, Jean Nicolet who traveled Lake Michigan and Louis Joliet who surveyed the Mississippi River.
Helen joined the Maryknoll Sisters at their residence in Valley Park, Missouri, on Oct. 14, 1948, receiving the religious name Sister M. Evelyn John.
She made her first vows in Valley Park on May 8, 1951, and worked at her congregation’s motherhouse in the Multigraph Department before making her final vows on May 8, 1954.
In 1954, she enrolled at Maryknoll Teachers College, Maryknoll, New York, receiving a bachelor’s degree in education in 1956.
Sister Helen was sent to Hawaii, where she taught third grade at St. Anthony School, Kalihi, from 1956 to 1962; first graders at St. Anthony, Wailuku, Maui, from 1962 to 1971; and primary grades at St. John the Baptist School, Honolulu, from 1971 to 1975. While teaching at St. John, Sister Helen was also the religious education coordinator for St. Philomena Parish, Salt Lake.
Sister Helen was then sent to Majuro in the Marshall Islands to be principal of a grammar school from 1975 to 1980. She returned to Honolulu to teach at Maryknoll Grade School from 1980 to 1983.
She spend one year as principal and kindergarten teacher for St. Rose School in Proctor, Minnesota, returning to Hawaii in 1984 to teach kindergarten at St. Ann School, Kaneohe, until 1991.
Sister Helen was then sent to Papua New Guinea, where she taught primary school children from 1991 to 1996. She returned to the Maryknoll motherhouse in New York to serve as a sacristan. From 1999 until 2007 she went to Minnesota to work in various ministries among Native Americans on reservations in Red Lake, her home town of Cloquet, and Fond du Lac.
Sister Helen then spent three years at the Maryknoll residence in Monrovia, California, and two more years in Cloquet before retiring at the motherhouse in 2012.
Her funeral and burial in the Maryknoll Sisters Cemetery was scheduled for Sept. 23.
