Sister Mary Lawrence Hoffman, 84, died March 15, at the Dominican Sisters’ Convent Infirmary in Great Bend. Born July 13, 1929, in Hays, as Dorothy Ann Hoffman, Sister Mary Lawrence was the daughter of the late Michael William and Margaret Feltis Hoffman. She entered the Dominican Sisters’ Community on Aug. 15, 1946, and pronounced her first vows June 10, 1949. She celebrated 60 years of religious profession in 2009. Sister Mary Lawrence was a teacher in parochial elementary schools of Kansas all of her ministerial life, most of the years from 1949 to 2000, and was principal of the grade school in Schulte. She taught in Garden City, Cunningham, Seward, Schulte, Kingman, and St. Rose in Great Bend. Following her teaching in Kingman she served as librarian of the school for five more years. She was also an instructor in logopedics in Central Kansas Medical Center from 1964 to 1967. She retired at the Motherhouse in Great Bend in 2005.
Survivors include her Dominican Sisters of Peace Community ;and two sisters: Marcella Flax of Ellis, and Mercedes Huslig of Ellinwood.
Sister Mary Lawrence’s body will be brought to the hospitality area of the Dominican Chapel of the Plains, 3600 Broadway, Great Bend, at 4 p.m. today, where it will lie in state until the Mass of Christian Burial at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, with the Rev. Ted Stoecklein presiding. A wake service will be held at 7 p.m. today. Burial will be in the Sisters’ Resurrection Cemetery. Friends may call at the convent from 5 p.m. until the time of the wake service at 7 p.m. today, and from 8 a.m. until the time of the funeral on Wednesday morning. Both the wake and the funeral will be held at the convent. Memorials in honor of Sister Mary Lawrence may be sent to Dominican Sisters of Peace, 2320 Airport Dr, Columbus OH  43219-2098. Condolences may be sent and notice viewed at www.bryantfh.net

Funeral arrangements provided by
Bryant Funeral Home*    
1425 Patton Road    
Great Bend, Ks. 67530
Great Bend (Kan) Tribune, March 18, 2014