Sister Joan Schaefer SSND

1933 - 2023

Sister Joan Schaefer SSND
August 14, 1933 - April 18, 2023
Covington, Louisiana - On August 14, 1933, the youngest of fourteen children was born to Bertha (Hoffman) and Peter Schaefer in Belleville, Illinois. She was baptized on August 20, 1933, at St. Peter's Cathedral and named Joan Marie. Three of the children died as infants, so the family of eleven living children, six girls and five boys, grew up in a happy and thoroughly Catholic environment with the joys and challenges of a large family, especially during the World War II years.
Joan attended St. Peter's Cathedral kindergarten and grade school, staffed by the School Sisters of Notre Dame. In the eighth grade, Joan felt a desire to follow God's call into religious life. One week after her older sister, Dolores, (Sister Daniel Marie) entered the candidature at Sancta Maria in Ripa, St. Louis, MO, Joan entered Notre Dame High School as an aspirant. Following graduation, she entered the candidature on August 30, 1951. During her second year of candidature, she was sent to teach third and fourth grade children at Blessed Sacrament School in Hannibal, Missouri. She was received into the novitiate on August 1, 1953, and given the name Pierre Marie. She professed first vows on August 2, 1954, and final vows on August 2, 1960. She later returned to her baptismal name.
Sister Joan received a bachelor's degree in English from the former Notre Dame College in St. Louis, MO in 1963 and a master's degree in secondary education from Xavier University, New Orleans, Louisiana in 1973.
Following profession, Sister Joan ministered in Catholic education for twenty-three years. She taught at St. Anthony, Longview, Texas; Christ the King School, Corpus Christi, Texas; St. Philip Neri, Metairie, Louisiana; Redemptorist Junior High School, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She was principal at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Dallas, Texas.
In 1974, she began to experience a call to serve God's people in the foreign missions. Three years later, in 1977, she was missioned to Ghana, West Africa. During the next eighteen years, she taught at St. Martin's Secondary School, Nsawam, Ghana; was co-director of the Catholic Conference Center in Nsawam; was a teacher at St. James Seminary, Sunyani, Ghana and became headmistress at the newly opened Notre Dame Girls Senior High School in Sunyani. During this time, she also ministered at a women's prison, teaching Bible classes and holding religious services. Following a short period of community service at St. Mary of the Pines, Chatawa, Mississippi and a sabbatical, she returned to Ghana and ministered as an occupational therapist at the Orthopedic Training Centre in Nsawam.
Due to a surgical error in 1986, Sister Joan had a paralyzed vocal cord and found teaching difficult. Therefore, in 1996, her next ministry was postulant director for the former Dallas Province at the formation house in San Antonio, Texas. She also served adults in a literacy program part-time. In 2001, she was called to be the director of the Retreat Center at St. Mary of the Pines, Chatawa, Mississippi.
When her term at the Retreat Center ended in 2009, she was asked by Sister Mary Kerber, District Leader for the District of Africa, to return to Africa as the secretary in the District Office in Accra, Ghana. She was present in August 2011 when the District of Africa became a Province. She said her final goodbye to Africa at the end of 2012 and spent six months assisting in the archives at the Generalate in Rome.
Back in the United States, she spent several months helping out at the former provincial house in Dallas before returning to St. Mary of the Pines, Chatawa, Mississippi as the assistant to the director of the Retreat Center. She moved to St. Anthony's Gardens, Covington, Louisiana in 2020 where she continued to perform community service. Following a hospital stay, she was transferred to Trinity Trace Community Care Center, Covington, in early March 2023 and placed on hospice in April 2023. She died peacefully around 8:00 p.m. on April 18, 2023, at Trinity Trace as Sisters kept vigil.
Sister Joan was a kind, gentle, prayerful, hospitable woman who witnessed to God's love and care for all of God's people. She enjoyed reading, gardening, writing poetry and haiku, needlework, and word puzzles. As she reflected on her years as a School Sister of Notre Dame, Sister Joan said, "Wherever I am, I will continue to live gratefully to God and all the wonderful people who appeared in the varied snapshots of my long life."
Sister Joan was preceded in death by her parents, Peter and Bertha, nee Hoffmann, Schaefer; five brothers Hugo, (Dorothy), Ralph (Adelia), Jim (Marilyn), Richard (Adele), Tom (Mary), and five sisters; Henrietta (Alphonse) Bauer, Sylvia (Kenneth) Winter, Marilyn (Clarence) Voegtle, Sister Dolores Schaefer SSND and Alice (Fred) Holtgrewe. Surviving are numerous nephews and nieces, cousins, friends and her Sisters of faith who have been by her side throughout her life.
May she experience the fullness of the life of the Resurrected Christ as she enters eternal life.