A funeral Mass for Sister Mary Paul Holdmeyer, SSND, was celebrated Dec. 29 at Sancta Maria in Ripa in St. Louis. Sister Mary Paul, 91, died in her sleep in the early morning of Dec. 18 at Mercy South Hospital in St. Louis. She was 91.
The fifth of seven children, she was born to Mary (Frankenberg) and Paul Holdmeyer on Oct. 14, 1932, in the family home near Washington, Missouri. She was baptized the following day at St. Francis Borgia Church and named Leona Eleanor. Her oldest brother died at birth and a younger sister died four months after birth.
Leona attended St. Francis Borgia Grade and High School where she was taught by the School Sisters of Notre Dame. The example of her teachers and her two aunts, Sisters Coletine and Assisi Frankenberg, as well as her cousin, Sister Eleanor Francis Frankenberg, confirmed her desire to become a sister.
She entered the candidature at Sancta Maria in Ripa in St. Louis on Aug. 31, 1950, and pursued college courses for a year and a half. She was then missioned to St. Francis Solanus in Quincy, Illinois, to teach fifth grade. She returned to the motherhouse and entered the novitiate July 29, 1952, and was given the name Mary Paul in honor of her mother and father. She professed first vows July 31, 1953, and final vows July 31, 1959.
Sister Mary Paul was sent to teach second grade at St. Jude Academy in San Diego, California. The next year, she returned to St. Louis to complete the coursework and to earn a bachelor’s in natural science at the former Notre Dame College in December 1955. In January 1956, she began her lengthy career as a secondary math and science teacher.
She taught in Illinois at St. Anthony High School in Effingham and St. Paul High School in Highland. In Missouri, she taught at Notre Dame High School in Cape Girardeau, Hannibal Catholic High School in Hannibal and Rosary High School in St. Louis. In 1967, she received a master’s degree in mathematics from the University of Illinois-Urbana. Her teaching ministry was interrupted from August 1974 to August 1979 when she answered the call to be the novice directress for the former St. Louis Province. She then returned to teaching, spending 10 years at St. Paul High School in Santa Fe Springs, California, and 17 years at St. Francis Borgia High School in Washington.
Sister Mary Paul was presented with the “Outstanding Educator Award” by The Rotary Club of Washington in 1993. The science laboratory at St. Francis Borgia Regional High School was dedicated in her honor in 2003 in recognition of her 50 years of service to Catholic education. Sister Mary Paul received the 2007 Catholic Women Awards sponsored by the St. Louis Archdiocesan committee on Women in the Church in the teacher category.
In 2006, she moved to St. Louis and taught at the Notre Dame Tutorial/Learning Center on the Sancta Maria in Ripa campus for three years and then became a laboratory assistant at Notre Dame High School for six years. After 55 years in Catholic education, she retired at Sancta Maria in Ripa in 2015. She later moved to Veronica House at The Sarah Community in Bridgeton and then Mother of Perpetual Help Residence in St. Louis.
Sister Mary Paul was a participant in the Rush Religious Orders Study, which is a collaborative study with Rush University and other U.S. medical centers that involves 1,100 religious clergy.
Sister Mary Paul was preceded in death by her parents, Mary (Frankenberg) and Paul Holdmeyer; her brothers, John, Melvin and Victor; and her sisters, Rose (Eugene) Kleekamp, Mary (Othmar) Voss and Rita Holdmeyer. She is survived by her sisters-in-laws, Edith Holdmeyer and Arlene Holdmeyer; nieces, nephews, friends, SSND and SSND associates.
Burial was in the Sancta Maria in Ripa cemetery.