Sister Adele Marie Lemon
A prolific writer with a free spirit
Sister Adele Marie Lemon, 1901-2006, was born Isabelle Mary in Arizona to a Mexican Catholic mother and a father with no religion. She was a self-described free-spirited “wild” child who once played hooky for an entire year rather than go to the school her mother wanted. She met her match in principal Sister Mary of the Angels at a Catholic boarding high school in Tucson. By the time she graduated, she “decided to become a nun.”
Isabelle Mary joined the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet one month shy of her 20th birthday, and on March 19, 1921, received the habit and the name Sister Adele Marie. She taught in San Francisco Bay area schools for 15 years before joining eight other sisters for the order’s first “overseas” mission — Hawaii.
The nine pioneers landed in Honolulu on Aug. 24, 1938, to welcoming crowds bearing fragrant leis. She taught at St. Theresa School in Honolulu for 11 years.
During her teaching years, Sister Adele Marie did a lot of writing, attributing her avocation to “a bit of printers’ ink in my blood.” A great-uncle had founded the famous English magazine, “Punch”; an uncle was a professional writer.
In “To You From Hawaii,” Sister Adele Marie recounted the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the war years that followed. Her book “Hawaii, Lei of Islands” told the history of the Catholic Church in Hawaii.
She also wrote a children’s book, “The Magic Wishbone,” illustrated by Sister Charlotte Anne Carter; a small catechism “Quiz Book” which was used in Hawaii and translated into Melanesian and Tagalog; and “Chalk Talks for the Busy Teacher,” a compilation of quotations for each day of the school year, besides magazine articles and poetry.
After Hawaii, Sister Adele Marie returned to the mainland and taught high school in California for 32 years. She also spent time studying and teaching in Europe and North Africa.
At the age of 81, her last year of teaching, Sister Adele Marie was invited with five other Sisters to take a trip to China. Afraid that her religious habit (she was the only sister wearing one) might cause delays in Communist China, she donned a muumuu and a straw hat.
She retired in 1991.
Sister Regina Catherine Brandt
First Hawaii vice-province director
Sister Regina Catherine Brandt, 1910-2012, served as an educator in Hawaii for more than 25 years.
She was a teacher and principal at three Oahu grade schools, worked at the diocesan school department and was also the first Hawaii Vice-Province director for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet.
Born in St. Louis in 1910, she joined the Sisters of St. Joseph on Sept. 8, 1930, making her final profession of vows on Aug. 15, 1936.
The first teaching assignment in her long career as an educator was as the third and fourth grade teacher at Sacred Heart School, Indianapolis, Indiana.
Sister Regina Catherine first came to Hawaii in 1939 to St. Theresa School in Honolulu where for 12 years she taught third and fourth grade and junior high.
In 1951, she went to St. Joseph School in Waipahu to teach sixth grade. Two years later she was named principal, followed by assignments at St. Anthony School, Kailua, and St. Theresa.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s in Hawaii she also served as vice-provincial of her congregation.
Her last island assignment was in 1964 as an education consultant and associate superintendent at the Catholic School Department.
Sister Regina Catherine would often share her recollections of Dec. 7, 1941, the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It was a Sunday and she was lining up the boys for Mass at St. Theresa Church.
“We were running late so I was trying to hurry the boys along but they kept stopping to look up at a plane. They kept saying, ‘Sister, one bomber, one bomber.’ I looked up and the plane was flying so low that I could see the pilot’s face. … We just got in the door of the church when the most deafening noise you can imagine began.”
Sister Regina Catherine returned to the mainland in 1967 for more assignments as a principal and teacher.
From the mid-1980s on she did administrative work for her congregation at its provincial house in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1992 she retired to Nazareth Living Center, where she spent her last 20 years ministering in prayer and witness.
She was 102 when she died.
Sister Jeanne Anne Collis
Paving new paths for women
Sister Jeanne Anne Collis, 1921-2015, paved new paths for women and religious in the Diocese of Honolulu. A Sister of St. Joseph for 68 years, she served nearly half that time Hawaii.
Sister Jeanne Anne was born in 1921 in Utica, New York. After graduating from high school, she worked for six years for Utica Mutual Insurance Company and also served in the Red Cross during the Second World War.
She entered the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in Troy, New York, on March 19, 1947, professing her final vows on the same day, the feast of St. Joseph, two years later.
She received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from the College of Saint Rose, Albany, and later pursued postgraduate studies in contemporary theology at the University of Hawaii.
Sister Jeanne Anne taught for 22 years in schools of the dioceses of Albany, Syracuse and Honolulu.
She came to Hawaii in the 1960s, first serving as a teacher and principal of St. Anthony School in Kailua. She then worked in a variety of administrative roles for the Diocese of Honolulu.
She served as administrative assistant to Msgr. Daniel Dever, the superintendent of schools. Under the administration of Bishop Joseph A. Ferrario, she was the first woman to be appointed vicar for religious, the liaison between Hawaii’s religious congregations and the bishop; assistant diocesan chancellor; and associate director of the permanent diaconate program.
In 1995, she returned to her congregation’s provincial house in Latham, New York, where she served as pastoral-care coordinator, and later, in various volunteer positions.
Sister Jeanne Anne was described as a gracious, vibrant woman whose joy in living overflowed into her every action. A Sister of St. Joseph to the core of her being, she gave the full expression of her many gifts to bring God’s unifying, reconciling love to all whom she met.
She maintained a fondness for the Islands, its people, culture and natural beauty, returning for special events as long as she was physically able. She infused warmth, wisdom, humor and love into every endeavor.
Sister Kathleen Marie Shields
Leading a golden era of religious ed
Sister Kathleen Marie Shields, 1926-2011, the ebullient Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet, led a golden era of religious education in the Diocese of Honolulu from 1982 until 2003.
She once described her teaching philosophy to the Hawaii Catholic Herald. Creativity and joyful enthusiasm must be marks of every catechist, she said. Classes cannot be dull and dead.
“Children need to learn that by experience,” Sister Kathleen Marie said. “They may not remember everything you taught, but they will remember you.”
Hawaii remembers Sister Kathleen as a woman of passionate faith and buoyant personality who left an indelible mark on the church in Hawaii.
Her baptismal name was Marie Theresa. When she joined the Sisters of St. Joseph right after high school, she took the religious name of Kathleen Marie and kept it for the rest of her life.
She came to the islands in the fall of 1982 after many years training and supervising religion teachers in dioceses across the country. She also taught catechetical sessions in colleges and seminaries and authored or co-authored several books on religious education.
In Hawaii she was attracted by the “marvelous signs of vitality in the church.”
Among her Hawaii accomplishments, she helped the bishop initiate a new two-year parish-based Confirmation program of education, maturing spirituality and service; she hired a consultant for religious special education to work with persons with disabilities; and she produced and helped host a diocesan radio show which aired live 112 times over two years.
She also helped write a diocesan guide to Catholic sex education; expanded and modernized her department’s media library; wrote, and later updated, a 100-page religious diocesan education curriculum titled “Children of God”; and organized the two-week Oahu Catechetical and Pastoral Institute, which offered nearly 40 classes in Scripture, church history, spirituality, morality, catechetics, liturgy and social ministry.
Near the end of her Hawaii tenure the diocese had 72 parish coordinators, 931 parish catechists, 232 volunteer youth leaders, 8,034 elementary level students and 2,223 high school students.
