A memorial Mass was celebrated March 23 at Theresa Center in south St. Louis County for Sister Eleanor Francis Frankenberg. She would have celebrated her 70th jubilee of religious profession as a School Sister of Notre Dame this summer.

Sister Eleanor Francis died March 16 at the Sancta Maria in Ripa infirmary in south St. Louis County at age 90.

Born Coletine Mary Frankenberg in Marthasville, she was employed by the KDK Shoe factory in Washington for two years before entering the School Sisters of Notre Dame in 1946. She was received into the novitiate in 1948 and given the name M. Eleanor Francis after her parents. She professed first vows in 1949 and final vows in 1955.

She received a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the former Notre Dame College in south St. Louis County in 1961 and a master’s degree in education from Saint Louis University in 1968.

Sister Eleanor Francis taught elementary children for 38 years in Illinois, California and Florida. She was a staff member of the maintenance/housekeeping department at Villa Gesu in St. Louis for two years. She also served in pastoral ministry and taught English as a second language in Florida.

Sister Eleanor Francis assisted in the closing of Notre Dame Hall in St. Louis and ministered in pastoral care at Fairfield Manor in St. Louis. When she moved to the St. Louis motherhouse in 2007, she volunteered in the archives and other areas and supervised the Ripa library.

Survivors include two sisters, Viola Struckhoff and Bernice Kemner, both of Augusta. She donated her body to St. Louis University School of Medicine.