Like Sister Gratiana, Sister Adele is the great aunt of my generation; the sister of our grandfather Louis Hirt, and daughter of Mary Ann and Andrew Hirt. Following is an extended obituary written by her friend and colleague, Sister M. Bona Ney with links to informational websites and pictures added by Jim Oehler.
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Friday, March 13, 1992, was a happy day in the life of Sister M. Adele Hirt. On that day she was released from her sufferings and went home to God after a long life approaching 98 years. The time of her departure was 6:05 am, and the place was St. Clare Convent, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.
Applicable to her were the words from Psalm 100, which the Sister prayed soon after in their Morning Prayer:
Ant.: Let us go into God's presence singing for joy.
Cry out with joy to the Lord....
Come before him, singing for joy.
Know that he, the Lord, is God,
He made us, we belong to him,
We are his people, the sheep of his flock.
Go within his gates, giving thanks,
Enter his courts with songs of praise.
Give thanks to him and bless his name.
Sister M. Adele was born in Medford, Wisconsin, on July 9, 1894. She was the seventh child of Andrew and Mary Anne (Brost) Hirt, homesteaders in Taylor County, Wisconsin. They were the parents of fourteen children--eight daughters and six sons, all of whom reached adulthood. They gave their seventh child the name Gertrude Marcella when she was baptized.
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| Gertrude (later Sister Adele; seated), Helen Hirt (standing left), and Elizabeth Hirt approximately 1910. |
With her brothers and sisters, Gertrude attended the district elementary school and grew up on their parents' dairy farm. Her sister Frances (later Sister M. Gratiana), who was the fifth child, three years older than Gertrude, entered the Community of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother in Marshfield, Wisconsin, in 1908, when she was seventeen, and Gertrude followed her into religious life on September 18, 1911, also at the age of seventeen. In an interview for a newspaper in 1989, she stated that she was encouraged by her parents, who were of German descent, to serve the Lord. "My parents," she said, "were anxious to have their girls become Sisters, to bring blessing to the family." She was received into the novitiate in Marshfield as Mary Adele of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on September 29, 1912, and took her first vows on October 4, 1914. Meanwhile she attended St. Mary's Convent High School in Marshfield, from which she graduated in 1915. She then attended the summer session at Stevens Point Normal. In August 1915 she was sent to teach at St. Joseph's Orphanage in Wabasha, Minnesota. This was the first of her 75 years of teaching. She wrote, "When I started out teaching, only a high school diploma and a county examination were needed to teach elementary schools. But every summer we were obliged to take courses in normal schools or teachers' colleges to continue our educational studies." She earned a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Wichita, in Wichita, Kansas, in 1937, and after that continued to keep updated with summer courses and much reading. She kept up on civic and world affairs as well, and wherever she was missioned she registered so as to be able to vote when the time came for it.
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| Circa 1915. Vintage postcard that was posted for sale on Ebay. |
Sister M. Adele taught at the following schools during her 75 years "out on the mission":
St. Joseph's Orphanage, Wabasha, Minnesota, 1915-1916
Public school in Villanueva, New Mexico, 1916-1928
Public school in Ribera, New Mexico, 1928-1930
St. Mary's School, Tomahawk, Wisconsin, 1930-1933
St. Rose School, Mt Vernon, Kansas, 1933-1939
St. Louis School, Waterloo, Kansas, 1939-1942
Mother of Perpetual Help School, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1942-1945
(She was the first principal at this school.)
St. Rose School, Mt. Vernon, Kansas, 1945-1947
Our Lady of Perpetual Help School, Wichita, Kansas, 1947-1953
St. Mary's School, Tomahawk, Wisconsin, 1953-1956
Our Lady of Perpetual Help School, Wichita, Kansas, 1956-1964
Our Lady of Guadalupe School, Wichita, Kansas, 1964-1965
St. Mary's School, Auburn, Iowa, 1965-1969
Santa Nino Catechetical School, Aragon, New Mexico, 1969-1970
St. Ann's School, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, 1970-1972
Sacred Heart Cathedral School, Gallup, New Mexico, 1972-1979 (While at this place,
she traveled to Ft. Wingate every Wednesday night to give religious instructions to
Navajo Indians.)
San Rafael Mission, San Rafael, New Mexico, 1979-1986 (CCD and parish work)
Holy Trinity Parish, Flora Vista, New Mexico, 1986-July 1990 (parish work and
CCD)
[This equates to 15 different schools in six different states in 75 years of teaching.]
Sister M. Adele taught in all the grades, the first through the eighth. In the interview mentioned above, she said, "Teaching was so much easier in my day [her earlier years]. Discipline just wasn't a problem. If we had a problem, we took care of it in the classroom." Much of her discipline, she said, was implemented by joining the students' activities. If she had playground duty, she was always sure to become a member of one of the teams involved in a game of baseball or marbles. Because of her direct involvement and good rapport with the children, they did as was expected of them. One of her students when she taught in Waterloo, Kansas (1939-1942), was the present Bishop Eugene Gerber of Wichita. In a letter that he wrote to her a few years ago he reminded her of those days. Another former student of hers when she taught in Mt. Vernon, Kansas, is our Sister M. Loretta Jacobs. Sister Adele was the principal and superior and taught the upper grades from about 1933-1970. In 1983, when she was almost 90 years old, she wrote, "Since my health is good, I do not see any reason for retiring at this time." During these latter years, from about 1970 on, she did remedial work, taught CCD, prepared children for First Communion, and helped in the parish and in the convent.
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| Sister Adele, Joe Ziehlke (brother-in-law), and Martha Hirt Ziehlke (sister) in 1981. |
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| Sister Adele in 1984 during a family visit to Wisconsin. Specific location unknown. |
When her sister, Sister Gratiana, died in June 1987, Sister M. Adele wrote the obituary report. Like her sister, she loved to collect rocks in the hills and mountains in New Mexico. These she polished and made into jewelry--necklaces and bracelets.
In the summer of 1989 she lost most of her hearing in her good ear, as the result of an infection, and decided that it was time for her to retire at the end of the 1989-1990 term.
She came to Our Lady of Sorrows Convent in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, to retire on July 31, 1990. But she continued to be very active, when she was not spending time in prayer. She made many rosaries, did much reading, and took walks on the convent grounds. In October of that year she began to experience severe abdominal pains. She was admitted to St. John Medical Center in Tulsa for tests, which indicated that she had an inoperable malignant tumor. She was discharged to St. Clare Convent on November 8, and remained at St. Clare's during the time that she was undergoing treatments for the cancer. By May 14, 1991, she felt well enough to move back to her room at Our Lady of Sorrows Convent. She busied herself as before with praying, reading, and visiting the ducks at the pond on the grounds of Fanciscan Villa. She also spent time reading to the visually impaired Sisters at Our Lady of Sorrows Convent and St. Clare Convent.
She celebrated 80 years in our congregation on August 25 at Our Lady of Sorrows Convent. For that occasion her sister Martha came from Ohio to spend a few days with her. This was her fifth jubilee; she celebrated her silver jubilee in 1939, her golden in 1961, her diamond (60 years) in 1971, and her 75th in 1986.
By the end of 1991 her health was visibly failing; she was experiencing much nausea. In the beginning of January a Sister who had not seen her for a few months visited her and saw the change in her. She expressed her concern about her health and encouraged her to become more active. Sister M. Adele's response was that she would get back to making some rosaries again and would spend time preparing for death. She spent much time in chapel, almost the whole time that the Blessed Sacrament was exposed during the forenoons, and was in chapel again in the afternoon. It had been her practice to spend an hour in prayer every dah since she had made a retreat with Bishop Sheen in Gallup, New Mexico, and had been encouraged and inspired by him to make a holy hour daily.
Towards the end of January, 1992, she was coughing severely, as her lungs were filling with fluid. She was anointed on February 4, 1992, and moved to St. Clare Convent that afternoon. Her condition continued to deteriorate, although when her niece, Ethel Kalmon of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, visited her about two weeks before her death, she told her niece that she thought she would be able to move back to Our Lady of Sorrows in about two weeks. She did come back, but not as she had expected.
Sister M. Corita Ortiz, who was very close to her, as they had spent the last eleven years of Sister's teaching years together in San Rafael and Flora Vista, New Mexico, came from Belen, New Mexico, to our Lady of Sorrows Convent on March 10 to be with her friend during her last days. She spent the night of March 12-13 with her. From 2:00 am on Sister M. Adele had no more pain, although earlier she had had to be given medication for pain every three hours. She did not sleep after that, and Sister M. Corita prayed with her, reminisced about their mission days, and sang their favorite songs. Although Sister M. Adele had an oxygen mask on, she was very alert and indicated that she was following along. Her hearing, without her hearing aids, had become very acute during these last days. A half hour before her death, she turned her head and looked around, as though seeing beyond this earthly veil, and her face became radiant. She tried to tell Sister Corita something but could not make herself understood because of the oxygen mask. She passed peacefully to the next world at 6:05 am, conscious to the end.
The body was brought back from the mortuary in the afternoon of March 15, and the wake service was held in the chapel in the evening.
The Funeral Mass was offered at 10:30 am in the chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows Convent on March 16 with Bishop Eusebius Beltran as the main celebrant. Concelebrating with him were Father Martin Morgan, pastor of St. Thomas More Parish, Tulsa; Father Patrick Schuller, S.J., convent chaplain; and Father Oliver Curran, pastor of Madre de Dios Parish in Winslow, Arizona. Father Oliver had been pastor in San Rafael and Flora Vista, New Mexico, when Sister M. Adele was missioned in these parishes.
In his homily, Bishop Beltran recalled his first meeting with Sister M. Adele more than a decade ago, when she was in her 80's and had introduced herself to him, telling him that she was still on mission. At each subsequent meeting with him she had reminded him of her age and that she was still active. She was proud of the fact that she had been able to be on mission until she was 95. She believed in Jesus' words, "I am the resurrection and the life," and put everything in the hands of the Lord. This mind-set gave her the strength to be on mission as long as God willed.
Among family and friends present for the funeral, in addition to the Sisters, were Sister M. Adele's brother Anthony Hirt, 83, the youngest of the family of fourteen, of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, his wife Eva, and his son-in-law, Roger Lecander of Crystal, Minnesota. They were also present for the wake the evening before. After the luncheon following the Mass, they accompanied the body, along with a number of Sisters and others to Calvary Cemetery in Tulsa for the graveside service, led by Father Oliver Curran. Before leaving the cemetery they paid a visit to the grave of Sister M. Gratiana Hirt.
Sister M. Adele's survivors in addition to her brother Anthony are two sisters and a brother: Mrs. Agatha Lawrence, Seattle, Washington; Mrs. Martha Ziehlke of Glenford, Ohio; and Louis Hirt, Medford, Wisconsin. She is survived also by fifteen nieces, four nephews, and two cousins.
Lord, may Sister M. Adele, who has died in your peace, give you everlasting glory in heaven, where we, too, hope to praise you for ever.
Sister M. Bona Ney
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| Sister Adele's gravestone in Calvary Cemetery, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Photo from the Find a Grave website. |
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