Sister Mary Bernard Clare   

Sister Mary Bernard Clare                 ND 4145                    PDF Download

Margaret Mary BUDDE

Immaculate Conception Province, USA

Date and Place of Birth:              April 12, 1927             Ft. Thomas, Kentucky
Date and Place of Profession:    August 10, 1949         Covington, Kentucky
Date and Place of Death:            August 20, 2020        Covington, Kentucky
Date and Place of Burial:            August 26, 2020        Covington, Kentucky

Margaret Mary Budde was born as the fourth of seven children to Clara and Bernard Budde in Ft. Thomas, Kentucky. Peggy described her family as loving and joyful. She enjoyed daily life on their livestock farm, working and playing with her brothers and sisters.

She wanted to enter the convent when she was in high school at Notre Dame Academy, but her mother thought that she was too young. However, her younger cousin, Sister Lawrence Budde, entered. So Peggy cried and said, “She gets to enter and I can’t.” Then her mother relented and Peggy entered Notre Dame Convent when she was 20 years old, in 1946.

Sister Bernard Clare began her sixty years of teaching elementary grades at St. Martin School in Cheviot, Ohio. She was a born teacher and served as both teacher and principal for various elementary schools in the Dioceses of Covington, Kentucky; Lexington, Kentucky; and Birmingham, Alabama. Her most fulfilling ministry was the ten years she spent teaching visually impaired students at Mother of God School and Sacred Heart School. She felt that these children were the happiest she ever worked with.

Sister’s love of family ran a close second to her love and devotion to God. Her family loved visiting her at the Heights. She always hosted the best family reunions. She would make posters and color-coded construction-paper cutouts for name tags, clarifying which relative belonged to which of her siblings, to make sure that all were able to know who belonged to whom and get to know each other better.

Sister retired in 2008. For a number of years, she helped coordinate weekly activities for the sisters in Lourdes Hall. There was a certain excitement in what she had planned, and you could tell that it came from her love of her sisters in the community. Even towards the end of her life, when she couldn’t communicate, Sister most certainly had Our Lord and Savior in her heart and in her smile. Sister Bernard Clare was truly full of God’s love and brought it to all those around her: family, sisters, nurses, and friends.

Sister Bernard Clare went home to God peacefully on her nameday. May the love with which Sister Bernard Clare served her God give her eternal happiness with him forever!