The memorial Mass for Sister Agnes Stottmann, FSM, was celebrated May 7 in the chapel at The Sarah Community in Bridgeton. Sister Agnes died May 1 at The Sarah Community. She was 94 and had been a Franciscan Sister of Mary for almost 77 years.
Born April 10, 1924, in Sterling, Okla., she entered the Sisters of St. Francis of Maryville on Sept. 3, 1941. She received the name Sister Mary Seraphia, and professed final vows May 6, 1947.
She attended St. Anthony School of Nursing in Oklahoma City, becoming a registered nurse in 1949. She was supervisor of the Emergency Room and Annex, then night supervisor for all of St. Anthony Hospital. She headed surgery until 1964. She completed her bachelor’s degree through Benedictine Heights College in 1964.
Sister Agnes then supervised surgery for several months at Alverno Heights Hospital in Tulsa before returning to St. Anthony’s Hospital as supervisor of surgery and clinical instructor for surgery (1964–67). She then supervised surgery at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Hannibal for almost a year. She served briefly in OSF leadership in 1970.
She completed a master’s in medical/surgical nursing through St. Louis University (1971), then taught medical/surgical nursing at St. Anthony’s School of Nursing (1972–1976). From 1977 to 1987 she lived and worked at Mount Alverno Convent in Maryville, serving in the library and housekeeping, and in the apostleship of prayer.
When the Sisters of St. Francis of Maryville and the Sisters of St. Mary reunited in 1987 as the Franciscan Sisters of Mary, Sister Agnes moved to St. Mary of the Angels Convent in St. Louis. Her ministries there included children’s daycare, physical therapy and activities for the elder and infirm sisters, and serving as companion to sisters who needed to go out for doctors’ appointments, etc. She moved to The Sarah Community in May 2010.
Sister Agnes is survived by two sisters, Lucy Bruehl of Cashmere, Wash., and Lydia Foote of Oklahoma City; and a brother, Herman of Lawton, Okla.