Sacred Hearts Sister Dorothy Santos
Lifelong teacher was also a prolific mosaic artist
By Patrick Downes
Hawaii Catholic Herald
Sacred Hearts Sister Dorothy Santos, a lifelong teacher and mosaic artist whose craftwork is displayed in places around the world, died Feb. 1 at Malia O Ka Malu Convent in Kaimuki. She was 96 and a religious sister for 76 years.
Her funeral was Feb. 12 at St. Patrick Church in Kaimuki. She was buried the same day at Hawaiian Memorial Park.
Last year, on the occasion of her 75th anniversary of her religious profession, she attributed her religious calling to the example of two Maryknoll Sisters who were her teachers. However, she chose to join the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary because perpetual adoration of the Holy Eucharist, an integral part of the congregation’s vocation, she said, “appealed very much to me.”
Sister Dorothy was born on Nov. 21, 1921, in Paia, Maui, the seventh of 11 children, and grew up in Makawao.
As a religious, she worked as an elementary school teacher for 48 years. She taught at Sacred Hearts Convent in Nuuanu, at Marie Regina School in Gardena, California, and at St. Patrick School in Kaimuki. From 1982 to 1988 she assisted in the congregation’s infirmary in Nuuanu and at the sisters’ convent and care facility Malia O Ka Malu in Kaimuki from 1988 to 2009.
She also served as a catechist at Blessed Sacrament Parish in Honolulu.
In a 2013 Hawaii Catholic Herald interview, at age 91 she said it was “my prayer life, my closeness with the Lord” that kept her going.
“When I go up the stairs, I say ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph.’ And when I come down the stairs, I say the same. Everything I do is connected with the Lord in some way or another,” she said.
“I am grateful to God that now I have the opportunity to spend more time in prayer,” she said. “It’s not that I don’t have distractions; I have one million and one. But it is the effort I put into my prayer at the first hour of the day that counts. The Lord sees the hearts of all of us. God listens to us. God has one million and one ears.”
“Time does not mean anything to me anymore. I will stay with the Lord as long as I can. That is a grace God gives us as we grow older,” she said.
Sister Dorothy spent much of her retirement piecing together large tile mosaics, created with artist-friend Karen Lucas. Her artwork illustrates the people, places and history of the Sacred Hearts congregation in Hawaii.
“The mosaics are something I always wanted to do,” she said last year. “If they help to bring people closer to God, and be inspired by the sisters who came all the way from France not knowing what they were coming to, I think the work is worthwhile.”
Her first piece was a picture of Hawaii’s first Sacred Hearts Convent, on Fort Street near the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace. Other works are life-sized images of St. Damien.
Her artwork is displayed in Sacred Hearts congregational houses and chapels on Oahu, Kauai, Molokai, on the Mainland, in Rome, and in Japan, Indonesia, Tonga, Fiji and India.
Sister Dorothy is survived by a brother Lionel Santos and Maryknoll Sister Cecilia Santos of Honolulu.
