M Celeste Govka

Mankato Mortuary
1001 N. Riverfront Drive
Mankato, MN 56001
507-388-2202

Our beloved Sister M. Celeste Glovka, 98, died peacefully at 2:15 p.m., Monday, August 27, 2012, in Notre Dame Health Care Center, Our Lady of Good Counsel Campus, Mankato, Minnesota. Sister Celeste shared in the SSND presence on Good Counsel Hill for almost 93 of the "100 Years on the Hill" which are being celebrated this year. Several sisters kept vigil with her in the days before her death.

The funeral Mass for Sister Celeste, with Father Don Rauscher, S.J., as presider, will be at 10:30 a.m., Friday, August 31, in Good Counsel Chapel, followed by burial in Good Counsel Cemetery. The vigil service will be at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, August 30. We extend our sympathy to her surviving cousins, her former students and colleagues, and her sisters in community, the School Sisters of Notre Dame. She was preceded in death by her parents, Henry and Mary (Weber) Glovka, a brother Edward, and two half-brothers, Emil and Bernard.

Sister Celeste (Viola Glovka) came from an exceptional family situation. Her father Henry had become a Catholic in 1900 when he was married in Adrian, Minnesota. Two sons, Emil and Bernard, were born before their mother died in 1904. In 1908 Henry married Mary Weber in Lismore, Minnesota, and two years later the family moved to a farm near Windom, Minnesota. A daughter was born on October 3, 1913, and given the name Viola Mary at her baptism the next day in St. Francis Xavier Church, Windom. Two years later another child was born. Sister Celeste wrote, "At the birth of my brother Edward on December 2, my mother became ill because of blood poisoning and died on December 11. My brother was placed in a Catholic orphanage in Sioux City, and my mother's sister took me into her family." Because of her own growing family, Viola's aunt could no longer care for her, and Viola's maternal grandparents, who lived in Windom, became her next family. Sister Celeste continued, "They still had two girls at home who wanted to go to a Catholic high school, so my grandparents moved to Mankato in the spring of 1919." About the same time Viola's father moved to Davenport, Iowa, where he married for a third time, and Edward eventually joined the family there.

In 1919, Good Counsel Academy was a day and boarding school for grades one through twelve. In an article for ReEchoes, Good Counsel Academy's alumnae newsletter, Sister Celeste described her school days, "In September, my two aunts and I registered at Good Counsel. One joined a sewing class, the other became a freshman. I entered the first grade. I was five years old. So now each morning we walked eight blocks and climbed 217 steps. There were no buses. To get to school we had to walk. I was a member of a classroom group of about ten pupils. We were in five different grades." (Her classroom was in the area across from the kitchen in what is now known as Isidore Hall. By the time she was in sixth grade, her class of four met in the newly constructed aspiranture building. Grades 1-6 were discontinued the year she became a seventh grader.) Viola completed eight grades in seven years and graduated from eighth grade in 1926. During this time, she remained in contact with her father and later commented, "My dad did not forget me. There were visits to Mankato and birthday presents every year. During those visits, I began getting acquainted with Eddie."

As a high school student, Viola continued her pattern of walking eight blocks and climbing 217 steps, and was possibly the only student to have attended Good Counsel Academy for all twelve grades. In 1930, she was given special recognition in a short Echoes article, "Deserves a Prize." "Ever since she was a sweet little grader [term used to describe students who attended elementary classes