Tuesday, November 3, 2009

A Mass of Christian Burial for Sister of Charity Mary Lydon was celebrated Oct. 30 in the Immaculate Conception Chapel at the congregation’s Delhi Township motherhouse. Sister Mary, 84, died Oct. 26, at Mother Margaret Hall.

A native of Chicago, Sister Mary entered the congregation in 1945 and was a Sister of Charity for 64 years. She earned bachelor’s degrees in education and English from the College of Mount Saint Joseph and a master’s degree in Spanish from St. Louis University.

In the early 1960s, Sister Mary answered a call for missionaries to South America. She served in Huancane, Peru, where she taught religion to the Aymara Indians in public schools and assisted in opening a medical clinic.

In addition to her work in foreign missions, Sister Mary also devoted her ministry to education. For more than 20 years she taught at schools in Ohio, Michigan and New Mexico, including St. Lawrence, St. Dominic and Annunciation in Cincinnati.

In 1972 Sister Mary returned to Peru, spending a year in Chivay-Arequipa, located high in the Andes Mountains. She then returned home to teach high school in Chicago, along with volunteering at Chicago’s Cook County Jail, where she taught English to Spanish-speaking prisoners awaiting trial. In 1984 Sister Mary returned to Cincinnati where she worked as the generalate at the College of Mount St. Joseph. She retired to the motherhouse in 1993.

Interment was in the motherhouse cemetery.