Sister MARY GERTRUDE SCHMELZER, PBVM

SCHMELZER, BAGGE, NOVAK, KUHN

Posted By: Mary Durr (email)
Date: 2/13/2003 at 20:24:37

Sister MARY GERTRUDE SCHMELZER, PBVM

Telegraph Herald - Friday, February 7, 2003

Sister Mary Gertrude Schmelzer, PBVM, 82, of Mount Loretto Convent, died Thursday, Feb. 6, 2003, at Mount Loretto.

Services will be at 10 a.m. Saturday at Mount Loretto. Burial will be in Mount Olivet Cemetery, Key West, Iowa. Friends may call from 3 to 8 p.m. today at Mount Loretto, where there will be a wake service at 7 p.m. The Dennis Kitchen Funeral Home, 3860 Asbury Road, is in charge of arrangements.

Sister Gertrude was born on Oct. 13, 1920, in West Union, Iowa, daughter of Arthur and Eva Schmelzer.

She entered the Sisters of the Presentation in February 1938, and professed her Perpetual Vows on Dec. 28, 1943.

She received her bachelor of arts degree in history and a minor in philosophy at Loras College, Dubuque. She received her master's degree from the University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls. She also took classes at the University of Wisconsin.

Her elementary and middle school teaching career spanned 50 years, and took her to Lawler, Ryan, Mason City, Farley and Dubuque, Iowa (St. Columbkille's). She worked in the Government I Remedial Reading Program in Mason City, from 1966 to 1991.

She retired to Mount Loretto Motherhouse in 1991, where she became the Motherhouse baker. She won numerous ribbons at county fairs for her baking over the years. Her specialty was her breads. She continued with her baking, her quilting and community service and prayer until her death.

Surviving are three sisters, Mary Agnes Schmelzer, Mrs. Angela Bagge and Mrs. Dorothy Ann (Don) Novak; four brothers, John, Joseph, Edmund and Alfred (Roslea); nieces and nephews; and the Sisters of the Presentation, with whom she shared her life for 64 years.

She was preceded in death by her parents; two brothers, Raymond and Maurice; and two sisters, Mrs. Theresa Kuhn and Sister Christine Schmelzer, PBVM.