Monica (Mary Helen) Frederick, CSJ
1922-2009
Those who instruct others to justice
shall shine as the stars for all eternity.
Daniel 12:3
Monica and her twin sister, Veronica, were born to Harry and Helen Spence Frederick on March 11, 1922. The twins already had one older brother and two sisters. Later two more sisters and two more brothers arrived to complete the Frederick family. They were a close-knit family whose members enjoyed one another.
Her aunts, Sister Anselma and Sister St. Alban, and her cousin, Sister Ann Cecilia, modeled for her the life of the Sisters of St. Joseph.
After spending eight years with the Dominican sisters at Incarnation School, Minneapolis, and her four high school years at St. Margaret’s Academy, Minneapolis, with the Sisters of St. Joseph, Monica entered the St. Joseph novitiate on September 8, 1940. She received the name, Sister Mary Helen. After pronouncing her first vows on March 19, 1943 Sister Mary Helen began the very next day her long career in education.
She began with teaching fourth grade at the old St. Michael’s in West St. Paul, then fourth and fifth grades at St. Mary’s School in Grand Forks, N.D. and seventh grade at Ascension School in Minneapolis. For the many years which followed, she served as principal, notably at Cathedral School in St. Paul. There she played a prominent leadership role in the 1970s in Project Discovery, an inner city curriculum program for a multiracial group of students in grades 1 through 8.
Meanwhile Sister Mary Helen, later Sister Monica, had earned her BA degree in English from St. Catherine’s College in 1956 and in 1965 a master’s degree in education and psychology from the University of Minnesota. Always interested in helping the learning disabled she later spent 1975-1976 at Cardinal Stritch College.
In 1983, after a few years in other duties, she became principal at St. Anne’s in Wabasso. Before and after that time her travels took her to such places as Arizona, Toronto, St Louis, and at time of her golden jubilee to Europe.
From 1987 to 1995, she, together with Sister Mary Caroline Pfeifer, served in parish ministry in a cluster of parishes in northern Wisconsin with Saxon, Wisconsin as their base. She “dearly loved” these challenging and enriching years.
Bethany Convent became her home in the last few years of her life. She grew increasingly ill, but was always cheerful and gracious. Sister Monica died May 20, 2009, at St. Joseph’s Hospital, St. Paul.
Her wake was held at Bethany Convent on Saturday morning, May 23, 2009, at 9:00 a.m., followed by the funeral Mass at 10:00. Burial followed immediately at Resurrection Cemetery.
Sister Monica is survived by her brother, John, and his wife, Monica, by her sisters, Mary Dupont and Theresa Sullivan, by her sister-in-law, June Frederick, and by nieces and nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews, and by Sister Mary Caroline Pfeifer, and by many other friends. She is also survived by the Sisters of St. Joseph and Consociates.
