Maryknoll Sister Sandra Anne Galazin, who served most of her 47 years of religious life as a counselor and social worker in Hawaii, died Sept. 26, at Maryknoll Sisters Center in Ossining, N.Y. She was 71.
Sister Sandy, as she was known in the Islands, recalled her religious calling in a 2011 Hawaii Catholic Herald interview.
She described being a member of a group of young adult Catholics in the turbulent mid-1960s, organized by a freshly ordained priest who integrated prayer, Scripture and the documents of Vatican II with the headlines of the day.
“It was revelatory for me,” Sister Sandy said.
She also involved herself in the racial politics that was burning up the nation at the time.
A priest to whom she looked for vocational advice made it simple for her. “If you want to be a teacher, join the Sisters of Mercy. If you want to be a nurse, join the Sisters of Mercy. If you want to be a missionary, join Maryknoll.”
“Don’t become a cloistered nun,” he added.
Sandra Galazin was born Jan. 5, 1944, in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., to Chester and Elizabeth Kockel Galazin, eldest of three children.
After graduating from Misericordia University in Pennsylvania, and before signing up with Maryknoll, Galazin taught English in a Woodbridge, N.J., high school that straddled both public housing and an affluent neighborhood.
Inspired by the vision of Vatican II and the life of Martin Luther King, Galazin entered religious life on Sept. 7, 1968, at a time when religious congregations were losing members and going through a period of renewal and adaptation to the modern world.
Hawaii was Sister Sandy’s first assignment as a Maryknoll Sister. She arrived on Aug. 15, 1969, to teach seventh and eighth grade English at Maryknoll Grade School.
After a year in the classroom, she sought another kind of work.
“I never wanted to teach in parochial schools,” she said in the 2011 interview.
Receiving permission to leave her teaching assignment, she went to the Pastoral Counseling Service in Honolulu, where another Maryknoll Sister worked, to do crisis intervention and personal counseling for residents of a low-income housing area from 1970-1972.
She then joined the staff of Susannah Wesley Community Center, a social services organization, working there from 1973-1975.
Sister Sandy professed her final vows at Sacred Heart Church in Honolulu on Aug. 22, 1976.
From 1975 to 1977, she worked for Catholic Social Services, the predecessor of Catholic Charities Hawaii, as a case worker and coordinator for Operation Aloha, a program that resettled war refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
She spent the next year serving the Diocese of Honolulu as a consultant for Call to Action, a diocesan hearing on social issues. She was also a lecturer in the theology department and member of the campus ministry team for Chaminade University of Honolulu.
From 1978 to 1985, Sister Sandra worked with Hansen’s disease patients who were fighting the State of Hawaii through legislative advocacy and community organizing to keep their Hale Mohalu residence in Pearl City.
That battle led to her involvement with Nuclear Free Pacific Resource Center as director and as the steering committee secretary for the Pacific Concerns Resource Center. Those positions sent her crisscrossing the Pacific to conferences on islands big and small, to help indigenous people speak for themselves.
Sister Sandra returned to Maryknoll Sisters Center to serve as director of the Office for Social Concerns from 1985 to 1989 and manager of the Communications Office from 1989 to 1993. During this time, she helped coordinate the publishing of “Hearts on Fire,” the story of the Maryknoll Sisters by Penny Lernoux.
Back in Hawaii in 1994, she earned a master’s degree in social work from the University of Hawaii and then served for five years as the home visitor program coordinator for Hana Like Home, an organization that works to prevent child abuse and neglect.
For her last 12 years in Hawaii, Sister Sandy worked at Catholic Charities Hawaii as program director of its Ka Malama ana I ka Punua program for families with infants at risk. Her final three years were spent doing case management work and counseling outreach in parishes.
She returned in 2012 to the Maryknoll Sisters Center, where she volunteered for a time with the Development Department, writing biographies of Maryknoll Sisters.
Sister Sandra is survived by her sister Nancy Orlowski of Harrisburg, Pa., and her brother John Galazin of Brooklyn. Sister has donated her body to the New York Medical School.
A vespers service for Sister Sandra is scheduled for Oct. 30 at the Maryknoll Sisters Center. A memorial Mass will be celebrated at the Center on Oct. 31.
