Sister Sylvia Borgmeier, SSND

Sister Sylvia Borgmeier, 81, died Thursday, March 5, 2020, in Notre Dame Health Care, Our Lady of Good Counsel, Mankato, Minnesota. She had suffered a massive stroke the preceding day. Family members - Ginger Borgmeier, her sister-in-law, and her sons and families – and sisters kept vigil with Sister Sylvia in her final days.

Service POSTPONED. A memorial Mass will be held at a later date to be announced.

We extend our sympathy to Sister Sylvia’s sister-in-law, her 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, Ray and Anna (Hutterer) Borgmeier, and her brother, John.

Sister Sylvia was born October 3, 1938, in Mankato and baptized Sylvia Ann two weeks later at SS. Peter & Paul Church, Mankato. Her brother John was born about a year later, and both children grew up on the family farm north of Mankato. Sylvia’s great grandfather, Frank Borgmeier, was among the original group of Catholic pioneers who settled in the Mankato area in 1854. It was his homestead that Sylvia’s father farmed. With several cousins on the neighboring farm, Sylvia and John enjoyed many hours of family time. Sylvia commented about her early years of faith, “Early spiritual life was simple. ‘Bless Mom, Dad, John and me, all soldier boys. Good night Father, Brother Jesus, Mother Mary, all angels and saints.’ We lived our faith. Mom and Dad personified charity and perseverance. What an unforgettable example!” Sylvia attended SS. Peter & Paul Grade School and Loyola High School, graduating in 1956. During her high school years she prayed about the question, “Can I become a sister?” Sylvia described her response, “It was time now as I graduated to choose my life vocation. I chose the sisters who had taught me, School Sisters of Notre Dame, and entered the community on August 28, 1956.” She later wrote, “Candidature brought endless surprises. What I thought would be penitential was easy: clothes, school and the like. What appeared to be simple proved to be a challenge: meditation, being a ‘sister’ to all.” At her reception into the novitiate on July 16, 1957, she was given the name Sister M. Rae Ann, a combination of her parents’ names. She later returned to her baptismal name. Following profession in 1958, she continued her college education and spent the second semester as a student teacher at Holy Rosary in North Mankato. In August 1959, Sister Sylvia received her first teaching assignment: intermediate grades at St. Michael School, Prior Lake. She wrote, “This was a new mission and we taught in a new school. All this made things much easier for me, since there were many things about school and convent life that we learned and tried out together. I was also given charge of the music. I gave lessons to children on Saturday and practiced after school for my own lessons, which I took in St. Paul.” Sister Sylvia remained at Prior Lake until 1965. She continued her teaching ministry at St. Matthias, Hampton (1965-67); Guardian Angel, Colton, Washington (1967-70); St. Bartholomew, Wayzata (1970-71); and St. Anne, Wabasso (1971-74). From 1974 through 1978, she served as religious education coordinator at St. Mary’s Parish, Worthington. She earned a B.A in elementary education in 1968 from Mount Mary College and an M.E. in religious education from Fort Wright College (Spokane) in 1973. Sister Sylvia described the next aspect of her life: “My call to Africa began with the call of the Church in the 1960s for religious communities to send 10% of their active personnel to assist Third World developing countries. . . . When our Mankato Province was invited to teach at the Upgrading Centre in Kisii, Kenya, I began to look at this call in my own heart.” She joined the province missionary support group and spent the summer of 1976 at the Rio Bravo mission in Guatemala, where she experienced another culture and was able to participate in missionary activities. Sister Sylvia continued, “Realizing that I was not so adept in learning Spanish, I decided to offer myself to go to Kenya, an English-speaking country. When my commitment to Worthington ended in 1978, I received a call from our provincial council to go to Kenya.” She had participated for two summers in a missionary preparation program prior to this new experience and felt ready at the age of 39 to answer the call to mission. Because of health concerns with her parents, she planned to stay for five years and then return to ministry closer to home. In late August 1978, Sisters Sylvia and Carola Redig from Milwaukee arrived in Nairobi, Kenya. Before beginning a study of the Kiswahili language, they were able to visit the various locations where SSNDs were ministering. In December, she moved to Nyaburu, a mission compound with several schools near Kisii, Kenya. Sister Sylvia began teaching in St. Francis Upgrading Centre, which was founded to help Kenyan sisters get a basic education to enable them to be further trained for ministry in parishes, schools and health care facilities. She taught sisters at various levels from primary through upper levels. Her parents came to visit at the end of her first year and stayed with the sisters for an extended time that included the Christmas holidays. Sister Sylvia remained in Kenya until 1983, when she returned to the United States following a five-month sabbatical in the Holy Land and participation in the SSND Rome Renewal program. Back in Minnesota, she was the religious education coordinator for St. Ann Parish, Janesville, until 1987 and then served as Motherhouse Community Leader for three years. In 1990, she was asked to return to Africa and help open the new African novitiate in Sunyani, Ghana. She lived in community with two other professed sisters and five novices and also worked in the diocesan religious education office. In January 1995, she became the postulant director in Kisumu, Kenya. In 1996, the sisters in Africa became a district in the congregation. Each country chose an area leader who would form the district council. Sister Sylvia became the SSND area leader for Kenya, while remaining as postulant director. In Sister Sylvia’s words, “After eleven years in our formation community and seven years as part of our leadership council for Africa, I felt a call to ‘come apart and rest awhile.’ ” From September 2004 until July 2005 she spent time with her family and friends and participated in a House of Prayer program in Texas. Responding to a new need in Africa, she returned in the summer of 2005, this time to parish ministry in The Gambia. In August 2007, she was elected to the district leadership council and moved to Accra, Ghana. Following the formation of the Province of Africa in 2011, she moved to Nigeria, where she served as director of temporary professed sisters. When she celebrated her 75th birthday in 2013, she knew that it was time to return to Mankato, and she became a member of the Central Pacific Province in July 2014. She reflected on her ministry in Africa: “In my heart I knew that I had touched the hearts and lives of so many of our sisters, novices and postulants across Africa, as well as the people I loved and knew in Kenya, Ghana, The Gambia and Nigeria. We had journeyed together to become one heart and mind in the Province of Africa. I will forever treasure their companionship on the journey.” Living at Good Counsel in Mankato, she volunteered with the Simon Ministry at St. John the Baptist Parish; participated as an active member of several committees including the SSND Earth Committee and the diocesan Social Concerns Committee; became a lector and Eucharistic minister and provided assistance in several areas on the Hill. She was grateful for the proximity of her family and enjoyed being with them. Sister Sylvia’s death was unexpected. Her chosen theme, “Like a child, I was at God’s side, ever at play in God’s presence,” reflected her delight as an SSND able to be of service to God’s people wherever she was called. May she now fully delight (and be at play) in God’s presence.