Obituary of Sister Mildred Katzer

Sister Mary Mildred Katzer, age 100, of Richmond, Kansas, passed away on Sunday, May 19, 2019, at Richmond Healthcare and Rehabilitation, Richmond, Kansas.

Mary Mildred Katzer, was the seventh born into a family of ten children in a farm home 4 ½ miles in the small home near Garnett, Kansas, on December 3, 1918.   She is the daughter of Joseph and Catherine (Roeckers) Katzer.  A new house was built the following year, so she learned to walk in a machine shed where the family lived until the new house was finished by Christmas of 1919.  

She attended a small country school 1 ⅛ miles from the home and was the only child in the class for several years.  The school was taught by women who graduated from Garnett High School.  She completed and graduated from Cedar Point in the spring of 1937, when she entered the Ursuline Convent of Paola, Kansas.  Since she had no high school classes, and the Sisters taught in schools, it took her from 1937 until the summer of 1956 to graduate from Saint Teresa College in Kansas City, Missouri.  She received the diploma from Bishop O’Hara and he said to her, “It is good to see an Ursuline here.”

She taught in the following schools from 1941 to 1999; Tulsa, Oklahoma, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, St. John’s, Greeley, Kansas, Holy Name, Kansas City, Kansas, St. Agnes, Fairway, Kansas, Queen of the Holy Rosary, Overland Park, Kansas, and Holy Angels, Garnett, Kansas.  These children were in the Primary grades.  Sister spent countless summers teaching Vacation Bible School in Oklahoma and Kansas; Waverly, Emerald, Hartford, Tonganoxie, Scipio, Richmond, and St. Ann’s in Prairie Village, Kansas, and Dewey, Oklahoma.  She did some tutoring in Math and Reading to children who needed special help.  She also visited the sick in their homes, the hospitals and nursing homes.

Sister used extra time to do crafts.  An Ursuline doll she dressed in the traditional habit is in the Museum at Lourdes, France.  There is also one in the National Shrine in Washington D.C.  Sister Imelda, her sister, and Sister Mildred made a coloring book called, The Christ Child Visits the Farm.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Joseph and Catherine Katzer; siblings, Hermon Katzer, Leonard Katzer, Stephen Katzer, Walter Katzer, and Ambrose Katzer; Sister Genevieve Katzer, Sister Imelda Katzer and Eunice Katzer.

Sister is survived by one sister, Rita Jackson of Ottawa, Kansas; and many nieces and nephews.

Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 10:30 a.m., Thursday, May 23, 2019, at St. Therese Catholic Church, Richmond, Kansas, with burial following at 2:00 p.m., in the Ursuline Cemetery, Paola, Kansas.  The family will greet friends following a rosary on Wednesday evening from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., at St. Therese Catholic Church in Richmond, Kansas.

Memorial contributions may be made to Ursuline Sisters, Holy Masses, or to the St. Therese Building Fund.  

You may send our condolences to the family at www.feuerbornfuneral.com.