Age 94
A self-described “people person,” Sister Mary Grace was a gracious and joyful hostess with boundless enthusiasm for her religious vocation for which she gave abundant thanks.
The youngest of nine children, the seventh daughter, born in Tralee, County, Kerry, Ireland, she arrived in Sacramento, California at the age of 19 to enter the Sisters of Mercy in Auburn, California. She earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Dominican College in San Rafael, California, and a certificate in religious education from Seattle University in Seattle, Washington.
She taught elementary education for over two decades in the Sacramento diocese serving as principal for four years at Sacred Heart School in Anderson, California. Her great love was for the Northern portion of the Sacramento Diocese where she taught at St. Joseph in Redding, California, and Sacred Heart in Anderson, California.
In 1965 Sister Mary Grace’s path took an unexpected turn when the community asked her to move to its pre-postulancy house in Ardfert, County Kerry, Ireland. This assignment allowed Mary Grace to do two things she ardently loved: inviting young women to give their lives to God through religious life and cooking. Her boundless enthusiasm for her religious vocation made Mary Grace an ideal person to tell the Mercy story, and she often referred to the young women who joined the community during her years in Ardfert as “her girls.”
In 1985 Sister Mary Grace received a new call, this time to hospital ministry. For fourteen years she volunteered helping patients, employees and families at Mercy Medical Center in Redding, California. She later served in the same position at Methodist Hospital in Sacramento, California, until her retirement in 2006.