Sister Irene (Leon Marie) Feltz, SSND

Our beloved Sister Irene (Leon Marie) Feltz, SSND, 91, died peacefully at 8:20 a.m. on Saturday, December 15, 2018, in Notre Dame Health Care, Mankato, Minnesota. In recent weeks, she had experienced increasing periods of weakness from which she would rally and then, in her eternal optimism, she would say “I’ll be better by Monday.”   The funeral liturgy, with Father Eugene Stenzel as presider, will be held Thursday, December 20, at 10:30 a.m. in Our Lady of Good Counsel Chapel. A prayer service of remembrance will precede the funeral liturgy at 9:00 a.m.  Burial of her cremains will follow in the Good Counsel cemetery at a later date.  We extend our sympathy to her sister, Dorothy Manhart, her nieces and nephews and their families, her friends, colleagues and former students, and her sisters in community, the School Sisters of Notre Dame and SSND Associates.  She was preceded in death by her parents, Leon and Mary (Skorlinski) Feltz, sisters Modesta (Maud) Kiesling, Helen Grulkowski, Esther Fehrman and Marion Wamhoff, and her brothers Edmund, Henry, Joseph, Albert and Leon.   The tenth child of eleven, Sister Irene was born August 3, 1927, in Winona, Minnesota. She was baptized at St. Stanislaus Church on August 14 and given the name Irene Augusta.  Her father, Leon, known as Larry, was born in Poland, and her mother, Mary, was born to Polish immigrants.  In 1933, Irene began first grade at St. Stanislaus School, where she was taught by School Sisters of Notre Dame.  During that year, her mother died. Irene later wrote, “I don’t remember my mother, but I do remember the love and care of my six older brothers and sisters for the four of us who were still in grade school and for Dorothy, who was too young to be in school.”    After her eighth grade graduation in 1941, Irene attended Cathedral High School in Winona.  She wrote, “Here I met the Rochester Franciscans and continued my studies under them at the College of St. Teresa.”  As a high school student, Irene worked weekends at Woolworth’s and summers at Emil’s Root Beer Stand, where she “earned a bigger income.”  She continued, “I paid my college tuition expenses through wages and tips I received as a waitress in the Winona Hotel.  I never regretted those working hours – a happy and rewarding time.”   Describing her vocation, Sister Irene wrote, “I think I always knew from my earliest educational years that I would be a sister, but ‘not yet.’  When I am asked why I chose to enter the Notre Dames I have to answer that I do not know – that I loved my Franciscan teachers.  The choice has always been a mystery to me. . . . In my senior year at St. Teresa, I knew it was time to make a decision.  Before the annual Holy Week retreat I spoke to Sister Florine Neuman at St. Stanislaus Convent about entering the SSND.” Her father and brothers and sisters “accepted” her decision, and she entered the SSND candidature in Mankato in August 1949.   Because she had completed her college education with majors in Latin and English, Irene spent her year in the candidature teaching Latin at Good Counsel Academy. At her reception into the novitiate in 1950, she was given the name Sister Leon Marie, a combination of her parents’ names.  She later returned to her baptismal name.  She professed first vows in 1951 and was missioned to St. Michael High School in St. Michael, Minnesota.  Here, she and Sister Mary Mark Tacheny taught all subjects in the two-year high school, which was located in the grade school building.  The high school building was ready for the 1953-54 school year, and she was able to teach “happy students in a beautiful new building with lovely classrooms and a complete faculty” for one year.    For the next thirty years, Sister Irene taught various subjects, but mainly Latin and Spanish in Catholic high schools: St. Agnes, St. Paul (1954-66); St. Michael [again] (1966-68); Trinity, Dickinson, North Dakota (1968-78); Loyola, Mankato (1978-79); St. Agnes [again] (1979-81); and Cretin, St. Paul (1981-83). In addition to the language classes, she also taught physical education for several years, describing her experience: “I had a few credits from St. Teresa and quickly, via correspondence courses and summer school, earned more than enough credits and soon realized the importance of teachers of phy-ed.”  During her years of teaching, Sister Irene earned two masters’ degrees, one in education from the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul (1953) and the other in English and Spanish from the University of Notre Dame (1966).  She also spent two summers studying Spanish conversation, one in Monterrey, Mexico, and the other in Barcelona, Spain.   In 1983, while teaching at Cretin, she felt the call to continue the ministry of her friend, Sister Trinitas Keltgen, a Guatemalan missionary who had become ill. Sister Irene wrote, “My life was changed.  I was still a teacher – but in Patzun, Guatemala.  Those four years were a wonderful experience.  I still taught, with typing as one subject, but my main subject was English. I wrote my own textbook of English stories to provide reading, grammar and points for conversation.  I especially enjoyed English conversations with the students outside of the classroom.”  After four years, she needed to decide whether to continue in Patzun and participated in an SSND renewal experience in Chatawa, Mississippi.  Sensing that SSND service in Guatemala was turning more toward pastoral ministry, she decided not to return to Patzun, but would “do whatever the province asked of me.”   Spending the fall of 1987 at Good Counsel, she received an invitation to give service at the SSND Generalate in Rome.  Remembering an earlier conversation, Sister Mary Gen Olin suggested Sister Irene when the request was made at an SSND leadership meeting: “We desperately need a sister for home service in Rome.  Can any province furnish one?”  Sister Irene lived and worked in Rome from 1988 through 1992.  She commented, “I served as refectorian and general helper. The friendliness of the sisters, no matter from where they were or what language they spoke or what position they held was a wonderful experience.”  She attended a private group papal audience with Pope John Paul II and greeted him with the Polish “Praised be Jesus Christ,” a phrase from her childhood, and he responded with a smile.  While in Rome, Sister Irene took advantage of her Thursdays off to explore within or outside of the city.  She called them her “Thursday Adventures.”   Returning to the US, in 1992, Sister Irene thought about becoming an ESL teacher.  However, after a few months of helping out in various areas on the Hill, she was appointed archivist for the province, a position she held until 2006.  During her years as archivist, each province was asked to write a complete province history.  Sister Irene was given this task and she produced a fully researched document that was divided into segments based on the time frame of each provincial leader.  Sister Irene wrote, “Learning and keeping the history of the congregation and province and, I must admit, visiting and learning about other provinces were more great experiences.”    Sister Irene’s “retirement” years were spent in more adventures.  She accompanied Sister Sue Von Bank, who was working with the Snowdon study on aging during the 2006-07 year.  She taught English in Hungary during the 2010-11 year and, as in previous experiences, she found the English conversation aspect the most rewarding.  In between adventures, she volunteered in the archives, providing invaluable assistance.  She also served as a receptionist and took an active part in liturgical services.  Reading, knitting and other needlework projects occupied any spare time that she might have had.   Grateful for her family’s presence in her life, displaying a wonderful sense of humor, and always positive, Sister Irene did not forget God’s benefits in her life.  May she now enjoy eternal life with the God who provided her with so many life-giving experiences during her very full life.   Sister Mary Kay Ash, SSND