Missioner served in Hawaii, Majuro as teacher, nurse for nearly 50 years
Maryknoll Sister Marie Patrice Kehoe, who served in Hawaii for nearly 50 years as a teacher and a nurse, died Aug. 9, at the Maryknoll Sisters care home in Maryknoll, N.Y. She was 91 years old and a Maryknoll Sister for 72 years.
Sister Marie Patrice arrived in Honolulu in 1948 to teach at Maryknoll High School for 22 years. She left the Islands to pursue a nursing degree and other assignments, returning to serve another 22 years at Maryknoll School as a nurse.
Sister Marie Patrice was born Patricia Marie on May 10, 1923, in New Rochelle, N.Y., one of six children of Raymond F. and Mary Wilde Kehoe. As a child, she attended Holy Family Parish in New Rochelle, graduating from Cathedral High School, New York, N.Y., in 1940.
She joined the Maryknoll Sisters at their motherhouse in Maryknoll, N.Y., from St. Athanasius Parish, Evanston, Ill., on Dec. 8, 1941, receiving the religious name Marie Patrice, which she kept for the rest of her life. She made her first vows on June 30, 1944, and final vows on June 30, 1947, both at the congregation’s motherhouse.
After completing her teacher training at Maryknoll College, N.Y., in 1947, Sister Marie Patrice taught for a year in Boston’s Chinatown before being sent to Honolulu, where she taught math and religion at Maryknoll High School from 1948 to 1970.
She returned to the Mainland to take theology courses at Manhattan College, then enrolled at Pace University in 1971, earning a registered nurse degree in 1973.
Sister Marie Patrice then returned to Honolulu where she worked at St. Francis Hospital from 1974 to 1976, followed by six years serving as a nurse-teacher on Majuro in the Marshall Islands from 1976 to 1982.
Returning to the Maryknoll Sisters Center, Sister Marie Patrice served as a nurse in the Maryknoll Sisters nursing home from 1982 to 1985. She was then sent back to Hawaii, serving from 1985 to 2007 as the nurse at Maryknoll High School and wherever else in the region her services were needed.
She had lived at the motherhouse since 2007, volunteering in various capacities, particularly with ill and elderly sisters from 2007 to 2009.
Sister Marie Patrice, who donated her body to science, is survived by a brother, Michael A. Kehoe of Springfield Center, N.Y., and a sister, Ann Marie Chapman of Washington, D.C.
A vesper service was celebrated for Sister Marie Patrice on Aug. 17, at the Maryknoll Sisters Center, followed by a memorial Mass on Aug. 18. A memorial Mass was celebrated for her Aug. 22 at Sacred Hearts Church in Honolulu.
