Much-loved teacher, last wearer of the old habit, the end of an era
By Patrick Downes
Hawaii Catholic Herald
Maryknoll Sister Maria Rosario Daley, who served more than 50 years in Hawaii as a teacher, high school counselor and diocesan personnel director, among other ministries, died Oct. 18 at the Maryknoll Sisters residence in Manoa. She was a religious sister for 73 years.
While remembered as a beloved teacher by hundreds of former students, she also distinguished herself by being the last Maryknoll Sister in the world to wear the 106-year-old order’s original gray habit and black veil. Her fellow sisters confirmed that.
Sister Rosario was 95 when she died, though her religious habit and broad Irish smile made her seem ageless.
“It’s the end of an era,” Maryknoll Sister Joan Chatfield told the Hawaii Catholic Herald.
Sister Rosario’s funeral is Dec. 1 at Sacred Hearts Church, Punahou, beginning with a visitation at 9 a.m., followed by Mass at 10 a.m. and burial at 2 p.m. at Diamond Head Cemetery.
Sister Joan, who cared for Sister Rosario for the past four years, shed some light on her choice of apparel. She said that Sister Rosario hung onto the habit because it was the best way to hide her severe scoliosis, which in her later years had reduced her height by seven inches.
Sister Joan said that Sister Rosario joked that it was more “vanity” than “sanctity.”
Sister Joan has warm memories of her companion, whom she helped recover from a bad fall.
“She was a great lady,” she said. “It was a joy taking care of her.”
Every single night of those four years, Sister Joan said, she would tell her, “I will see you in the morning if God wills it.”
Sister Joan came home at quarter-to-nine on Thursday, Oct. 18, to find Sister Rosario had passed away at her computer, midway through a game of Solitaire. While waiting for medical personnel to attend to the body, Sister Joan finished the game for her and won. It was proof enough for her that Sister Rosario was in heaven.
How popular was Sister Rosario? Sister Joan said that she had a Christmas card address list of 860 names. She signed every one, adding notes to some, and paid for the postage herself with her small Maryknoll personal allowance.
Sister Rosario was born Regina Anne Daley in Albany, New York, on Feb. 1, 1923. She graduated from the College of St. Rose, Albany, in 1945 with bachelor degrees in Latin and mathematics. On Sept. 6, 1945, she entered Maryknoll from Blessed Sacrament Parish in Albany.
She was assigned in 1948 to Maryknoll School in Honolulu, where she taught grades seven, eight and 11 until 1957. She then taught 11th grade at St. Ann High School in Kaneohe from 1957 until 1963, when she was assigned to St. Anthony High School, Wailuku, Maui. There she taught 11th grade for two years.
In 1965, Sister Rosario became a student again, enrolling at Boston College in Massachusetts where she earned a master’s degree in mathematics in 1967. She later joined the faculty at Mary Rogers College, Maryknoll, New York, teaching mathematics and working in the admissions office. She earned a master’s in theology in 1974 at Maryknoll Seminary.
For the next 10 years, Sister Rosario served as the Maryknoll congregation’s lay employee personnel coordinator, handling immigration matters for non-U.S. Maryknoll Sisters. She returned to Hawaii in 1985 to work as the personnel director for the business office of the Diocese of Honolulu. There, according to Sister Joan, she developed a computer program to handle payroll for Hawaii clergy.
She returned to Maryknoll School to work in its college guidance department from 1996 to 2006. She and Sister Marie Patrice Kehoe, a school nurse, were the last two Maryknoll Sisters to work at the school her congregation founded 79 years earlier.
Sister Rosario also served as a sacristan and eucharistic minister at Sacred Heart Church from 1997 to 2003. In a 2011 interview in the Hawaii Catholic Herald, she talked about that work.
Seven days a week, she and a helper would open up the church doors at 4:30 a.m. — “early so that people can stop by to make a visit with our Lord on their way to work.’
“We also set up for the Mass at 6:30 a.m.,” she said. “All my life, I’ve had the advantage of a love for the Mass which was inspired by my parents. When I used to teach at Maryknoll High School, I tried to impart that same love into my students.”
“To see the graduates of Maryknoll High School keep that love of the Eucharist going makes me feel that all of my teaching at Maryknoll has been fruitful,” she said.
“As I grow older, the Eucharist as thanksgiving is extremely important to me,” she said.
In 2015, reflecting on her 70th anniversary as a Maryknoll Sister, she said that she had been “thanking God for being visible to me in each one I’ve met.”
“Having former students come to visit with their grandchildren is one of the joys of my old age,” she said.
