Mary James Zembal

Sister Mary James Zembal was born the third child of Carol and Ann Zembal, both of whom grew up in Poland, in Aberdeen, Washington on September 17, 1931 and was given the name Genevieve. She attended high school at St. Mary's Academy in Toledo, Washington where she met the Franciscan Sisters of Penance and Christian Charity. After graduation she entered the novitiate of the Sisters in Sierra Madre, California and was given the name "Mary James." She earned a BA degree from Mt. St. Mary's in Los Angeles and an MS from St. Mary's College in Winona, MN. She professed perpetual vows in 1956.

As early as 1953 she began a life as a teacher, at first at the grammar school level in Sacramento and the Los Angeles area, and then, starting in 1962 at the high school level in San Francisco, Montana, and Washington State. Moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1972, where she lived for 48 continuous years, she taught at Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose. Training as an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher in 1986, she began a 27-year ministry in the San Mateo area, teaching English to many refugees and immigrants.

Before moving to Santa Maria in October of 2020 with her dear friend, Sister Michele Mangan, she volunteered at St. Anthony's Foundation in Palo Alto, often making dozens of cookies for food baskets delivered to the homeless.

Throughout her life she loved to garden, especially delighting in tulips; she often received tulip bulbs from Holland, some sent from the Sisters of St. Francis who live in the Netherlands.

She was often visited by her former ESL students, many of them Chinese, who provided many dishes from their own cuisine, which she greatly enjoyed. Sister James also taught English to many of our sisters from other countries. She traveled numerous times to Poland to teach English to the Sisters there. Sister James was faithful to attending daily Mass (often praying for rain) and to her daily prayer life.

A Vigil Service will be held on Monday, November 24 at 6 pm at the main chapel at Marian Convent, 124 S. College Dr. in Santa Maria. Mass of Resurrection will be on Tuesday, November 25 at 10:30 in the same location. Donations may be made in her name to the Wilderness Fund, a special fund the Sisters have for the poor.