Sister Matthias died July 5 at Catherine’s Residence in St. Louis after an extended illness. She was 98 and had been a Sister of Mercy for 70 years. She entered the community in 1950 and made her first profession in 1953 and her final profession in 1956.

Born in Maxville, Missouri, Sister Matthias earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Incarnate Word College in San Antonio and ministered primarily as a teacher in St. Louis, Springfield and Sikeston, Missouri; Gillespie, Illinois; and Brownsville, Texas. In the archdiocese, she taught at Christ the King School in University City from 1959-60 and St. Joan of Arc School in St. Louis in 1972. She served in pastoral care at St. John’s Mercy Hospital in Washington and St. John’s Mercy Medical Center in St. Louis in the early 1980s. She was a receptionist at the Sisters of Mercy Health System in St. Louis from 1988-91. In her later years, she assisted in health care ministry through various positions, most recently as a volunteer as Mercy Hospital St. Louis from 1998-2009.

Sister Matthias donated her body to Saint Louis University, and she will be honored with a plaque in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis.