Recent Deaths

Sister Mary Damian Powers
1931–2020

Sister Mary Damian Powers, OSM, 88, of the Servants of Mary, Ladysmith, Wis., died peacefully at Addolorata Villa, Wheeling, Illinois, on May 11, 2020.

Theresa Ann Powers was born in Chicago, Illinois, on November 13, 1931, to Patrick and Helen (Skrupky) Powers. Her family moved to Bruce, Wis., when she was a child. She entered the Servants of Mary in 1947 and received the name Sister Mary Damian at her reception as a novice the following year. She made her perpetual profession in 1955.

She held a BA in medical technology from the College of St. Scholastica, Duluth, Minn., and was a certified chaplain in the National Association of Catholic Chaplains.

She served as a medical technologist at St. Mary's Hospital, Ladysmith, and St. Mary's Kewanee Area Memorial Hospital, Kewaunee, Wis., and did parish ministry at Our Lady of Sorrows Basilica, Chicago.

In 1987 she went to Boston to study Urban Clinical Pastoral Education at Emmanuel College. Her worksite for the CPE program was St. Matthew's Parish, an urban parish in Dorchester, Mass. The parish later hired her as a pastoral associate and coordinator of the food pantry. She also ministered at the neighboring St. Ambrose Parish, where she visited the sick and elderly in hospitals and nursing homes and led a weekly Bible study.

She was a recipient of the 2009 Hidden Hero Award of the Codman Square Neighborhood Council, a neighborhood development award of Dorchester.

She was still actively serving the needy of Dorchester at age 82 when she suffered a debilitating brain aneurysm and moved to Addolorata Villa to be closer to her family and religious community in the Midwest. A friend who worked with her at the food pantry said, "Sister Damian was an amazing gal who did incredible things in Boston. The pantry lives on!"

She is survived by many nieces, nephews, and friends, and the Servite Sisters, with whom she shared life for 73 years.

She was preceded in death by her parents, brothers Edward Powers, Patrick (Ellen) Powers, and James (Virginia) Powers, and sister Rita (Fred) Stoll.

Her funeral mass was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Father Papi Reddy Yeruva presided at a private graveside service on May 14, 2020, with burial in the convent cemetery in Ladysmith.