Sister Mary Joan (M. Sylvester Trombley, SSND

Our beloved Sister Mary Joan (M. Sylvester) Trombley, SSND, 87, died peacefully at 12:42 p.m. on Saturday, August 11, 2018. She recently entered Hospice because of her declining condition. Sisters were present with her when she died, and several Interculturality Workshop participants had stopped in to pray with her during their noon break. The funeral liturgy, with Father Eugene Stenzel as presider, will be held Friday, August 17, 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. We extend our sympathy to her brother, John (Arlene), her sister, Marlene (Dawayne) Novak, her sister-in-law, Mary Trombley, 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, Lester and Lillian (LaRock) Trombley, and her brother, Lester. Sister Mary Jo surprised her parents with her early birth on October 17, 1930. Born about two months premature, she weighed a little over two pounds and spent the first two months of life in a shoe box with a lighted bulb as a companion. She was baptized Mary Joan on October 23 at St. Louis Church in St. Paul. She was the oldest of six children, two of whom died in infancy. Her father was a mechanic and her mother a homemaker. For various reasons, by the time Mary Jo graduated from eighth grade in 1945, she had attended four different Catholic schools in St. Paul: St. Michael, St. Bernard, St. Rose of Lima and St. Adalbert, and was taught by members of four different religious congregations. She attended ninth grade at a local public school and enrolled in St. Francis de Sales for her sophomore year, where she first met School Sisters of Notre Dame. In September 1947, she entered the aspiranture at Good Counsel Academy, and graduated from there in 1949. In August 1949, she returned to Good Counsel, this time as a member of the candidate class. Following a year of study, she taught grades three and four at St. Peter School, Hokah. This was the first time she had lived in a small town. In July 1951, she was received into the novitiate at Good Counsel and given the name Sister Mary Sylvester. She later returned to her baptismal name of Mary Joan but was known as Mary Jo. Following profession of first vows in 1952, Sister Sylvester was missioned to St. Agnes School in St. Paul. Here she taught grade four and assisted with sacristy work. In 1955, she moved to another small town, Comfrey, where she taught grades three, four and five and was responsible for the sacristy and servers. Perhaps as a foretelling of a future ministry, she wrote, “We had no cook, but we managed to get three meals a day with no ill effects.” From 1957 through 1963, she taught intermediate grades at St. Cyril and Methodius, Minneapolis; St. Matthew, St. Paul; St. Mary, Marystown; Our Lady of Guadalupe, St. Paul; and Christ the King, Omak, Washington. She earned a BA degree from Mount Mary College in 1960. In the late 1950s, Saint John XXIII asked the North American and Western European churches to send ten percent of their priestly and religious personnel to Latin America and other Third World countries. In response, the Mankato Province leadership asked sisters to indicate an interest in serving in Latin America. Sister Sylvester wrote to Mother Bernardia Gores in August 1961: “I volunteer for the South American missions. I’m thirty, past final vows, had a good report from the doctor, and I’ve always wanted to work in the missions. The rest is up to you.” She restated her willingness in 1962. In August 1962, the Mankato Province sent their first group of missionaries to Nahuala, Guatemala. Sister Sylvester and Sister Conrad Schwab (now Sister Rose) were chosen as the second missionary group. The pastor of San Bernardino in the Guatemalan Highlands city of Patzún, Father Justiniano Babuino, an Italian Franciscan, had petitioned Mother Bernardia for sisters in 1962, and she was able to meet his request one year later. The two sisters arrived in Patzún in August 1963. The Mankato Province history described their arrival: “Thousands of citizens, including the mayor and other town and church officials, greeted them as they stepped from the car in the central plaza of Patzún. As they walked to the church through the crowds of smiling and then bowing faces, rose petals showered on them.” The celebration of welcome extended for three hours and included Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament in church and a parade through town. Sisters Sylvester and Conrad then spent several months in Antigua learning Spanish. A Catholic school in Patzún was already in operation under the direction of lay teachers, and it was here that the sisters began their ministry in January 1964. They helped coordinate school activities and taught English and religion. They were commended for introducing a new method of education that went beyond the memorization of facts with too little done to promote thinking. The sisters also cared for girls who boarded in a little house on the school grounds. In January 1968, Sister Sylvester returned to Minnesota, and resumed her Catholic school ministry, teaching intermediate and junior high grades at St. Agnes, St. Matthew and Holy Childhood, all in St. Paul; St. Peter, Hokah; and Fitzgerald and Loyola, Mankato. One of her Loyola students remembered that Sister Mary Jo taught them how to change the oil and a tire on their cars. Sister Mary Jo had an interest in science and was also adept at fixing whatever needed fixing. In 1978, she became part of the maintenance staff on Good Counsel Hill. During this time she earned an engineer license and was able to service the boilers on the Hill. A 1981 article called her “Ms. Fixit” and described her role: “Officially, Sister serves as liaison for Sister Mary Roman Adam, coordinator of temporalities, checking repair requests, directing the men in their varied jobs about the Hill, and setting up and supervising the work of people sent by the county probation office to work off time.” The article expanded on this role, stating that Sister Mary Jo would help with car maintenance, mow the campus grass, and answer troubleshooting calls from all over the Hill. She often traveled from building to building on a sturdy three-wheeled bicycle. At some point, one of the men installing combination windows mentioned that the St. Joseph Hall roof would be ideal for a repeater radio to aid the area in times of disaster or when the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) was engaged in search and rescue operations. The installation of this repeater led Sister Mary Jo to join CAP in the capacity of communications officer, where she reached the rank of captain. Sister Mary Jo’s next ministry was in the Good Counsel kitchen, where she worked from 1984 until 1989, when she became the cook at the SSND Generalate in Rome. Working in food service highlighted another of her skills – preparing meals for large groups. She delighted in providing meals – both simple and festive – for sisters and guests. After she returned from Rome in 1991, Sister Mary Jo became the province AV specialist. The 1994 renovation of the chapel included provision for a video camera through which she was able to televise the daily liturgy throughout the motherhouse on closed-circuit TV. She also videotaped province events, learned how to use video-editing equipment to produce quality videos, and could often be found in her recording studio working on various projects. She was also instrumental in the installation of video cameras in the newly designed Conference Center in Theresa Hall. Interested in photography from her childhood, she became the Hill photographer and was often seen carrying one or more cameras to an event. Sister Mary Jo shared her skills and talents with many, and yet when health issues required her to step back, she was equally able to do that. She did indeed find her peace in God. May she now enjoy eternal peace. Perhaps she is also assisting with the cooking, stringing a heavenly cable, or getting just the right angle for a photo!