Missioner teacher served 20 years in Catholic schools on Maui, Oahu
Maryknoll Sister Leona Michiels, who served in Hawaii as an educator for more than 20 years, died Jan. 17 at Maryknoll Sisters Home Care IV, Maryknoll, N.Y. She was 97 and a Maryknoll Sister for 76 years.
Sister Leona was born in Chicago on Nov. 8, 1917, to Leo P. and Leona M. Syoen Michiels, the oldest of their 10 children. She entered Maryknoll at the order’s motherhouse in New York on Dec. 7, 1938.
She professed first vows on June 30, 1941, keeping her baptismal name. She made her final profession in Hawaii on June 30, 1944.
Sister Leona was assigned in 1943 to Hawaii where the Maryknoll Sisters ran 10 schools. She taught science at St. Anthony High School, Wailuku, Maui, from 1943 until 1959, when she moved to Maryknoll School in Honolulu to teach physics, algebra and geometry for a year. She then spent another year teaching science at St. Ann School in Kaneohe.
She secured a master’s degree in education from Temple University in 1965 after which she went to Mexico to learn Spanish, quickly becoming proficient in that language. She then taught science at Colegio Monte Maria in Guatemala until 1971 when she returned to Hawaii.
She again taught at St. Ann School until 1973 when she returned to the Maryknoll Sisters Center to serve as an infirmary driver. In 1976 she moved to the congregation’s residence in Monrovia, Calif., to be a driver there.
In 1981, Sister Leona returned to Maryknoll Center, where she set up the congregation’s Stamp Department until 2010.
Sister Leona’s funeral was Jan. 22 at Maryknoll, N.Y. She is buried in the Maryknoll Sisters Cemetery.
