Sister Mary Geraldine

Sister  Mary  Geraldine       ND  6426            PDF Download

Susan Marie WADOWICK

Christ the King Province, Chardon, Ohio, USA

Date and Place of Birth:   February 6, 1949   Cleveland, Ohio
Date and Place of Profession:August 15, 1969  Chardon, Ohio
Date and Place of Death:     December 6, 2015   Health Care Center, Chardon,Ohio
Date and Place of Funeral: December 11, 2015   Provincial Center, Chardon,Ohio
Date and Place of Burial:   December 11, 2015  Resurrection Cemetery, Chardon, Ohio

As the eldest of ten children born to Jack and Martha (Dostal) Wadowick, Susan learned at an early age to love and care for others in the close-knit family living in Cleveland. She wrote, “We didn’t do anything extraordinary; we just lived, worked, prayed, played and traveled together as a family.” Her father, Jack, worked for the Sisters of Notre Dame as an artistic and accomplished carpenter for fifty years, at the Cleveland, and later, the Chardon Provincial House. When just four years old, Susan remembered helping the sisters clean out the barns, ride the tractor and walk in the woods when they took her for visits to their new property in Chardon where the family relocated from Cleveland in 1957. From her early years Susan also came to know the sisters through her aunt, Sister Mary Austin Wadowick.

Susan attended high school at Notre Dame Academy, Chardon. In her senior year, she became an aspirant and entered the Sisters of Notre Dame on February 2, 1967, from St. Helen Parish, Newbury. At investment, she was given the name Sister Mary Geraldine.

After her profession, Sister was missoned for service in the diet kitchen and as a nurse’s aide in the Provincial House Infirmary. Having studied at Marymount Hospital, Cleveland, Sister Mary Geraldine was certified as a Licensed Practical Nurse. She loved this ministry and was kind and thorough in her care for the sisters. She was known for her compassionate response to the needs of all she encountered in her nursing rounds. When her physical strength began to decline, Sister Mary Geraldine continued to assist in the Health Care Center, doing whatever she could to bring joy to the sister residents. In spite of her own serious health problems, she tried to minister to other infirm sisters in as many ways as she could.

Sister Mary Geraldine always remained close to her very large family. She enjoyed participating in and gathering pictures of family events. She treasured each visitor to her room when she could no longer leave it. While suffering much herself, she remained loving, generous and other-centered. With her welcoming smile, gentle manner and deep sense of gratitude, Sister gave witness to the God who lived within. At an early age she wrote, “I want to suffer and accept it as something wonderful God has sent, whatever form it may take.” Sister Mary Geraldine has now been set free—her life of redemptive suffering has been transformed into new, eternal life. May she know peace and Christmas joy!