A large number of Dominican Sisters of Peace gathered in the Dominican Chapel of the Plains in Great Bend on June 22-23 to celebrate the religious vocation and service of 12 of their fellow religious Sisters. Those celebrating 70 years of vowed life were Sisters Corona Bayer and Virginia Burgardt, 65 years Sister Jean Goering, and 60 years Sisters Lillian Gehlen, Nancy Jane Kuntz, Amy McFrederick, Denise Mueting, Rebecca Otter, LeAnn Probst, Terry Wasinger, Annette Winter, and Joan Wolf. Together these Sisters have given 745 years of dedicated service to the people of God.
Sister Corona Bayer
(70 years professed)
Sister Corona gave much of her ministerial life to domestic work in the Sisters’ missions. She also served at the Great Bend convent in the kitchen and sewing room. Later she ministered as a health aide in nursing homes and home health in Kansas and Colorado. Sister Corona is the tireless producer of items for the Sisters’ annual bazaar, organizing the production of sets of embroidered tea towels and crocheted net scrubbies. As a person herself visually impaired, she has been an inspirational force for aid to the blind in the Central Kansas Association for the Visually Impaired. Sister Corona currently lives at the Motherhouse in Great Bend.
Sister Virginia
Burgardt
(70 years professed)
Sister Virginia began her ministerial life as a teacher of children in grades 1-4 in Kansas parochial schools in 1950, and then she served in the convent diet kitchen and in other domestic services. In 1961 she began a long tour as a missionary in the Nigeria, West Africa mission among the Dominican Sisters of Gusau, Nigeria, a congregation founded by the Dominican Sisters of Great Bend, which she continued until 1975. While in Nigeria she served for several years as the formation director for the young Sisters in the indigenous congregation. Back in the States, Sister Virginia served in Garden City as a nurse aide, teacher aide, and as an assistant in a hearing aid office. She currently lives at the Motherhouse in Great Bend.
Sister Jean Goering
(65 years professed)
Sister Jean is a native Nebraskan who taught not only in Nebraska, but also in Iowa, Massachusetts, and New York. She also gave several years to repairing homes and apartments in Missouri and Illinois. Educated in both liturgy and pastoral ministry, she has also devoted time to parish work in Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa. In Kankakee, Illinois, she tutored at the local community college. At the Motherhouse in Great Bend, where Sister Jean currently lives, she volunteers in many aspects of the local community life, one of which is her commitment to do all she can to preserve the beauty and integrity of our Earth.
Sister Lillian Gehlen
(60 years professed)
Sister Lillian, who currently lives and ministers in Wichita, has had a lifetime of service as a nurse and as a missionary in Nigeria. Of her jubilee she says, “Jubilee means for me thanking God for the opportunity to serve as a Dominican Sister. My years of service in the nursing profession and my years working in Nigeria have been a true gift from God. It is great to have a special day to say Thank You to God.”
Sister Nancy
Jane Kuntz
(60 years professed)
Sister Nancy Jane looked over her 60 years as a professed Dominican Sister and found that she has been transformed through various missions and ministries. She was called to be: teacher, parish minister, prison minister, missionary in Nigeria, vocation director, director and chaplain at St. Catherine Hospital in Garden City, and now offers Compassionate Care as a chaplain at Catholic Care Center in Wichita. She says, “A jubilee year is my time to praise and thank God for every grace and blessing through my life beginning with my parents, family, relatives, friends, and my religious community for their support and love. I rejoice that each personal encounter continues to transform me into what God has called me to be – His disciple and a Dominican Sister of Peace.”
Sister Amy
McFrederick
(60 years professed)
Sister Amy was 16 when she entered the Dominican Sisters Convent in Great Bend and 19 when she made her first vows 60 years ago. Looking back over the years, she says with a grateful heart, “What a ride!” After graduating from high school, earning a BS in Education, and doing graduate studies in Liturgical Music, her vow of obedience (to do God’s will and go where one is sent in mission) took her to serve in several States in the USA, and short missions in Ontario, Canada; Nigeria, West Africa; and Rome, Italy. Starting as a teacher in primary schools, then high school, she was called to be a core member in a House of Prayer in Detroit, Michigan, before returning to Great Bend to serve in the Pilgrim House of Prayer and Retreat Center, on the Preaching Team, in parish ministry, liturgical music ministry with several Sister congregations and national conferences, the role of Co-director at the Collaborative Dominican Novitiate, and as part of the Leadership Team in Great Bend. In 2009 when the Great Bend congregation joined with six other Dominican Sister Congregations to become the Dominican Sisters of Peace, she was asked to move to Akron, Ohio, to serve on the Vocation Team, then a few years later to be Co-director of the Dominican Associates. She has recently completed seven years in that role and is presently on sabbatical. She states, “There have been many adjustments, painful times of struggle and letting go, but the joys far outweigh them, and my predominate prayer is: THANK YOU, GOD, FOR ALL!”
Sister Denise Mueting
(60 years professed)
Sister Denise started her ministerial work teaching children in the primary grades for 30 years in Kansas and Colorado schools. Then she worked with archdiocesan housing in Denver helping low-income families find affordable housing. Those years were followed by 24 years of ministry at the Gardens of St. Elizabeth, a retirement community in Denver, filling the position of administrative assistant. Through the years she tutored English to those needing assistance, taught vacation Bible school during many summers, and transported seniors and children to free cultural events in Denver. Of her jubilee she says, “Jubilee means thanking God for His presence during my years of ministry. Also there have been abundant gifts received from my Dominican life. God and the Dominican life give a deep spiritual meaning to my life.”
Sister Rebecca Otter
(60 years professed)
Sister Rebecca spent 14 years teaching in elementary and junior high schools at St. Mary’s in Garden City and St. Rose in Great Bend. She ministered for seven years in campus ministry at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas. She served for several years in community formation ministry, and she has given nearly 30 years to pastoral ministry in Dodge City; Sweetwater and Abilene, Texas; and Perry, Meriden, and Larned, Kansas. She says, “This 60th jubilee is a great celebration of all those years and people whose lives have touched mine contributing to who I am today. It is a time of giving thanks and praise to God for all those blessings, and for calling me to live the Dominican way of life with this Community of Sisters.”
Sister LeAnn Probst
(60 years professed)
Sister LeAnn was a teacher for 46 years, mainly in Kansas. About half of those years were spent working with students with special needs from kindergarten through college. The past 10 years she ministered at Blessed Sacrament Parish in Lame Deer, Montana, on the Northern Cheyenne Indian reservation. Currently in transition, Sister LeAnn is living in Larned. For her, Jubilee means an opportunity to reflect on the blessings and challenges of the past years and to give thanks.
Sister Mary
Terence Wasinger
(60 years professed)
Sister Terry entered the Great Bend Dominican Sisters from Hays in 1956 because she learned that they had opened a mission in Nigeria that year. From childhood she wanted to “be a nurse and go to Africa.” Her father, a dentist, placed Medical Missionary magazines in his waiting room and the photos in those magazines called to her from age 3. When she graduated as a nurse, she worked in St. Rose Hospital and CKMC for two years, until she completed the requirements to volunteer for Nigeria – being 25 years old and having made final vows. She ministered in Nigeria as a nurse-midwife in hospitals, conducted primary health care in the villages, and assisted in the Novitiate of the Nigerian Dominican Sisters for a total of 25 years. Returning to the U.S., she ministered in Labor and Delivery at CKMC while living and helping at Heartland Farm for 21 years. Six years ago she moved to the Dominican Motherhouse in Kentucky, ministering as the nurse for retired Sisters in independent living until six months ago, at which time she retired. Celebrating her jubilee of 60 years, Sister Terry rejoices and prays the words of Psalm 139: “I thank You, God, for the wonder of my being, for the wonder of Your works!”
Sister Annette Winter
(60 years professed)
Sister Annette began doing domestic work and being an organist. After Junior College she worked in many hospitals as an Occupational Therapy Assistant. While working at a garden center, she became a Master Gardener. In the past several years she has cared for the flower beds at the shrines at the Great Bend Motherhouse. After doing all of the above, she is happy helping prepare for the annual bazaar at the Motherhouse, and she is grateful that her health allows her to do what she can still do.
Sister Joan Wolf
(60 years professed)
Sister Joan has had a variety of ministries over the past 60 years, each of which was an answer to a call deep within, After several years of teaching, she served in parishes in the areas of music and liturgy, RCIA, religious education, and teaching for the dioceses of Salina and Dodge City. In 1985 she helped found the Heartland Center for Spirituality in Great Bend, after which she acquired a degree in pastoral counseling and practiced in Manhattan, Kansas, and in Pueblo, Colorado. In Pueblo she returned to her first love, teaching, this time on the university level. A perfect circle. She says, “This jubilee is for me a marker of God’s faithfulness and a deepening of my commitment to the Dominican way of life. My life has been and continues to be a wonderful journey and all I can say is ‘God is so good!’ “
