Sister M. Joanna Illg, SSND

Our beloved Sister M. Joanna Illg, 84, died suddenly and very unexpectedly at 10:19 p.m., Wednesday, August 31, 2016, in Notre Dame Health Care, Our Lady of Good Counsel, Mankato, Minnesota. A member of Good Counsel’s Isidore Community, she was recovering from a broken hip at the time of her death. Health care staff members were with her when she died. The Funeral Liturgy, with Father Eugene Stenzel as presider, will be held Thursday, September 8, at 10:30 in Our Lady of Good Counsel Chapel, followed by burial of her cremains in the Good Counsel Cemetery. An evening prayer service of remembrance will be held at 7:00 p.m. Wednesday. We extend our sympathy to her sisters, Dorothy Paul, Jean Aberle, Rosemary DeWolfe, and Elizabeth Dittrich, and her brother Paul, her nieces and nephews and their families, her friends, former students and colleagues, and her sisters in community, the School Sisters of Notre Dame. She was preceded in death by her parents, Joseph and Nora (Broderick) Illg, and her brothers Joseph, James and Harold. Sister Joanna was born May 1, 1932, on her grandfather’s farm near Hazelwood, Minnesota. The sixth of nine children born to Joseph and Nora Illg, she was baptized Marjorie Ann at the Church of the Annunciation, Hazelwood, two weeks later. Several months later, the Illg family moved to Northfield. At age five, Marjorie contracted polio and was paralyzed. It was feared that she would never walk again. She later wrote, “But I had a mother who refused to believe it. She subsequently spent hours massaging, exercising and praying with me for wellness. Thirteen months later, as a strong, healthy child, I was able to begin Rosary School in Northfield, and during the next eight years I was blessed with a wonderful education from the School Sisters of Notre Dame.” Marjorie loved the sisters and began to think about becoming a sister during her elementary school years. She commented, “When I was in seventh grade, I went to Mankato with a classmate whose mom was celebrating her 25th anniversary of graduation from Good Counsel Academy. Everything about the Hill was magic, and it was love at first sight. Although I spent most of my eighth grade denying my secret desire of becoming a sister, after graduation in May 1946, I relented and asked Sister Bertha Nosbush at Rosary School to help me apply for admission to the Aspiranture. Somehow she didn’t seem surprised and was happy to respond.” Marjorie spent four happy years at Good Counsel Academy and graduated in 1950. Marjorie entered the SSND candidature in August 1950. As a second year candidate she taught third and fourth graders at St. John the Baptist School, Mankato. She was received into the novitiate in July 1949, and given the name Sister M. Joanna, a combination of her father’s first name and her mother’s second name. She professed first vows in July 1953, and began an eighteen-year elementary and high school teaching ministry. Her first mission was St. Mark, Shakopee, where she stayed until 1960. During her first year there, she experienced an after-effect of her childhood polio: her right heel cord shrunk, which limited her foot movement. Orthopedic surgery relieved some of the stress, and, although she lived with weakness in her right leg from that time on, it did not slow her down. In 1960, Sister Joanna moved to St. Mary, Worthington, and stayed until 1963. She then became principal and upper-grade teacher at St. Nicholas, New Market, for two years. Because of her minor in mathematics, she was called on to assist others in learning how to teach the “New Math” that was being introduced into schools. She moved to Corpus Christi, St. Paul, in 1965 with plans to give math workshops for Twin City area sisters. In October, however, she was asked to exchange places with the high school math teacher at Don Bosco, Gilbertville, Iowa, who was unable to get Iowa certification in math. She wrote, “So on Friday afternoon I left a seventh-grade classroom and on Monday morning I was in a senior high calculus class!” She finished the year at Gilbertville and then taught math at Good Counsel Academy (1966-68) and Loyola High School, Mankato (1968-71). She earned a BA in education and mathematics from Mount Mary College in 1964 and described her MA degree pursuit: “I spent three summers in post graduate mathematics courses at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., but an unexpected change in direction led me to computer classes at Clarke College in Dubuque and Mankato State University. Although I was close to an MA in mathematics, another bend in the road had me complete a Masters Degree in the School of Business at the University of Notre Dame in 1974.” The Mankato Province began a new form of provincial leadership in 1971 – a team governmental structure. Sister Joanna was elected the first Coordinator of Temporalities, which included the provincial treasurer position. During her years as treasurer, she had significant involvement in several local and national projects in the post-Vatican II era of religious community development. She did extensive research on Social Security for religious and helped the Mankato Province and other groups implement the program. She also organized treasurers of religious communities in the five-state area and formed the regional Conference of Religious Treasurers (CORT), which continues to meet regularly to discuss items of finance, investments, social justice and other topics. She was also significant in the development of the national CORT group. At the 1978 annual meeting of the Lykes Steel Corporation, as a minority shareholder she presented a resolution calling for accountability, which received 47.8% of the total shareholder vote. As a result of these and other accomplishments, she was named to the 1981 World Who’s Who of Women. In 1979, following two terms in provincial leadership, Sister Joanna became the Parish Business Administrator at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis, a position she held until 1989. She wrote, “I loved the parish work and had great plans for continuing in the implementation of some exciting renewal and expansion programs. But a call from Sister Patricia Flynn, our SSND General Superior, invited me to discern about the position of General Treasurer in Rome. Little did I know what a profound ministry God had planned for me!” Her ten-year period of service as General Treasurer (1989-99) encompassed the years of the collapse of Communism in Europe, which led to great changes in the lives of SSNDs of Eastern Europe and East Berlin. She was part of the Generalate’s mission to assist sisters in those countries “reestablish suitable housing and adequate living conditions in a setting of freedom. There were enormous needs of every kind – physical, emotional, spiritual and economical. To be privileged to walk with these sisters was a blessing and a richness that was indeed incomprehensible.” Sister Joanna returned to Minnesota in 1999 and lived briefly at St. Andrew’s Convent in St. Paul before joining the formation community at St. Matthew’s. She became the administrator of the SSND Cooperative Investment Fund and was also the accountant for the East Side Learning Center. For two years she shared her financial skills with offices at St. Thomas University and the School of Divinity. In 2010, she moved to Good Counsel, where she was involved in many aspects of community service, including the administration of local community accounts. She became the treasurer of the Good Counsel Academy Alumnae Association and an active member of the Association Board. She was a member of the task force that studied the future of the Alumnae Association, and during the recent transition between alumnae coordinators, board members were extremely grateful to her for her service to the association. She was also a lector and a member of the Chapel Choir. In late July, Sister Joanna suffered a broken hip on her “good” side. She remained optimistic, determined to recover and move back to her room in Isidore Hall. But as so often in her life, God had other plans. Sister Joanna acted justly and loved tenderly. May she now really WALK humbly with her God for all eternity.