CNA Staff, Dec 19, 2020 / 04:01 am (CNA).- Eight elderly religious sisters died of COVID-19 complications in one week at a retirement home for the School Sisters of Notre Dame near Milwaukee.
“Even though they’re older and most of the sisters that did go to God are in their late 80s, 90s … we didn’t expect them to go so, so quickly,” Sister Debra Marie Sciano, the provincial leader for School Sisters of Notre Dame Central Pacific Province, told the Associated Press. “So it was just very difficult for us.”
“We believe that each of these sisters, and and all the sisters, really, they’ve made a difference in this world,” Sciano said. “I just think it’s important that people know that, and that they were committed up until the end of their lives.”
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The Associated Press
ELM GROVE, Wis. Eight nuns living at a retirement home for sisters in suburban Milwaukee died of COVID-19 complications in the last week including four who passed away on the same day a grim reminder of how quickly the virus can spread in congregate living situations, even when precautions are taken.
Notre Dame of Elm Grove had been free of the virus for the last nine months, but the congregation that runs the home found out on Thanksgiving Day that one of the roughly 100 sisters who live there had tested positive. Despite social distancing and other mitigation efforts that were already in place, several more positive tests followed, said Sister Debra Marie Sciano, the provincial leader for School Sisters of Notre Dame Central Pacific Province.
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Eight nuns in their 80s and 90s die in the same week after COVID-19 spread through their Wisconsin retirement home
Eight nuns at a retirement home in suburban Milwaukee, Wisconsin, died of COVID-19 within a week of each other
Sisters Rose M. Feess, 91, and Mary Elva Wiesner, 94, died on December 9
Sisters Dorothy MacIntyre, 88, died on December 11 and Mary Alexius Portz, 96, died Sunday
Sisters Cynthia Borman, Joan Emily Kaul, Lillia Langreck and Michael Marie Laux all died on Monday
Nuns lived at the Notre Dame of Elm Grove in Elm Grove, Wisconsin
Home was free of virus for nine months until recently, when it was learned on Thanksgiving Day that one of the nuns tested positive for COVID-19