On Wednesday, May 4 at 6 p.m., Bishop Robert Gruss will preside at Mass for the 2022 Religious Jubilee Celebration at the Cathedral of Mary of the Assumption in Saginaw. All are welcome. Representing four religious congregations, the jubiliarians have served the faithful for a combined 260 years in a variety of capacities and locations. During the Mass, they will renew their commitment to religious life. Special recognition will be given to the jubilarians named below.
Celebrating 60 years:
Sister Rose Miriam Doerr, RSM
Sister Rose Miriam Doerr, RSM, was born in Bay City, Michigan on November 13, 1941. She is the daughter of Harold A. and Regina M. Maxwell Doerr. Her Baptism name is Kathleen Ann Doerr. Her father attended SS Peter & Paul’s School in Saginaw and graduated from the University of Detroit School of Commerce and Finance. Her mother attended St. Mary’s School in Bay City and was a Registered Nurse from Mercy School of Nursing in Bay City. She had two younger brothers: Thomas A. and Robert M. (dec.) and one sister: Rosemary. They all attended St. Mary’s School and Sister Rose Miriam graduated from St. Mary’s High School on June 6, 1960.
A few months later she entered the Sisters of Mercy Province of Detroit on September 8, 1960. She professed temporary vows on August 16, 1963. She graduated from Mercy College of Detroit in June 1966 with a B.A. in Secondary Education and Home Economics. In August 1968, she professed perpetual vows. She earned her M.A. from Michigan State University in 1973 with a major in Secondary Education and Human Ecology. She spent her working years in secondary education, and served in Catholic high schools in Saginaw, Grand Rapids, Port Huron, Lansing and Bay City. She has also worked in adult education for Bay City Public Schools.
For several years, she has done a great deal of genealogy research regarding her own family and also other requests. Most of her research has been in Michigan, Wisconsin, New York and also Ontario and Quebec, Canada. She has contacted several archives in many dioceses in the previously mentioned states and Canada. She has been happy to receive baptism, marriage and burial records for many of her ancestors from those archives.
She is pleased to know that the Diocese of Saginaw is in the process of establishing an archive.
Three of her classmates from St. Mary’s are also Sisters of Mercy. They are: Sisters Mary Epple, Rita Epple and Marianne Bennett. The late Father James G. Heller was also a classmate.
Sister Rose Miriam serves as a lector and Eucharistic minister at Our Lady of Peace Parish in Bay City.
Sister Marie Kopin, CPPS
Sister Marie Kopin, CPPS, has been a Sister of the Precious Blood, Dayton Ohio for 60 years. She has spent some 51 years of her life within the Saginaw Diocese (Mt. Pleasant). She is a native of Flint, Michigan and a second generation Polish immigrant. She grew up with a father who loved the Church and shared his faith with her through music. He and Sister Marie's mother, a “concert violinist,” provided many music teachers for Sister Marie. In high school, she played the organ at Holy Rosary Parish and was in the choir. She also played in the Kearsley High School Band. This led to a music major and permanent certification in both Vocal Music Ed. and Speech Correction at Central Michigan University.
She began her teaching career at the Michigan School for the Deaf in Flint and doing music ministry at Sacred Heart Parish, playing for early morning Masses and learning many Gregorian chants. She also accompanied the Knights of Columbus Choir at their monthly Masses. At this time, she met the Sisters of the Precious Blood at Marian Hall in Flint, and they were most receptive to her continuation of speech pathology as a Sister in their congregation. She joined them and made her first vows in 1964. She taught various classes at the aspirancy and sang, taught music and played organ and learned even more traditional Latin and German hymns as her congregation had been led by German immigrants.
She received a M.S. degree from the University of Michigan in both Speech Pathology and Audiology and started work in the public schools of Cleveland, Ohio while living with the Sisters at Good Council Parish. After final vows, she taught Speech Therapy at rural Putnam County, Ohio where she directed the Saints Peter and Paul Church choir and played organ for morning liturgies. She began work at Central Michigan University at the “Summer Residential Speech-Hearing-Language-and Reading Clinic,” and that turned into 25 years of full-time work at CMU. There, she was welcomed by the Grand Rapids Dominican Sisters for 16 years at the Sacred Heart Church convent, while she brought speech therapy to Sacred Heart School. She also directed an Instrumental Music Group for 13 years, plus playing organ. She took an educational leave to study at the University of Virginia over a period of 3 years for my Ph.D., and then settled back at CMU with "elder care." She transferred to Saints Charles and Henry Parishes and volunteered playing organ and working with cantors. When the parishes consolidated, she directed the choir at Our Lady of Hope in Clare, volunteering for two years.
She is now involved in honoring God’s environment as a mycologist, which is another one of her family heritages. Currently, she leads educational field experiences and teaches mycology classes mainly in Isabella County. This includes garden clubs, libraries, Audubon clubs, and the list goes on. She has won two awards at the national level and is the head of the North American Mycological Society’s education committee. I am a life member of the Michigan Mushroom Hunting Club, Michigan Audubon Club and the Michigan Nature Association and am a co-Steward of the Parson’s Preserve in Clare County. Currently, I co-teach a Saginaw Chippewa College course on “Plants and herbal medicines,” adding much about fungi and mushrooms.
So God has kept me very busy with gifts of healing, music, and dancing, plus teaching about God’s love for us all through the amazing gifts in our environment to all ages. I await what more God is gifting me to do and rejoicing and praising God for all the good I have experienced.
Sister Sylvia Wozniak, OP
Sister Sylvia's mother shared this with her about her birth: Her father was a patient in Alpena General Hospital on January 21, 1941. That day, after she was born, a staff person went to her father’s ward announcing to the wrong man that his wife had just delivered him a new daughter. The man said, ‘That’s impossible, I’m not married.” Upon hearing that, her dad spoke up claiming her as his. On February 2, 1941, Sister Sylvia was baptized Barbara Mary Wozniak at St. Anne Church in Alpena, Michigan.
She shares that how, where and why she is ... is very much a mystery which she lives daily. During a senior year of high school retreat, she said God called her to the Grand Rapids Dominican community and she entered in September 1959.
After the first years of religious formation, learning about living a vowed religious life, she made first profession of vows in June 1961. Taking up studies again at Aquinas College, she prepared for future assignments as a teacher. She was missioned to Saginaw, SS. Peter and Paul as a first-grade teacher. That began her teaching ministry in Catholic elementary schools: St. Francis, Traverse City; St. Alphonsus and Marywood Academy in Grand Rapids, St. Joseph, West Branch, St. Mary, Hannah, all in Michigan and Holy Cross, Santa Cruz, New Mexico.
Having earned a master’s degree in religious education, along with my bachelor’s degree in sociology, she began full time catechetical and pastoral ministry at the following locations: St. Joseph, Weare; St. Vincent, Pentwater; St. Joseph, Howell; St. Roch, Caseville; St. Felix, Pinnebog; St. Stanislaus Kostka, Bay City and Sacred Heart, Merrill, Michigan.
After nearly nine years in Merrill, plus the previous twenty-six years elsewhere in church-based ministries, she was offered and encouraged to accept a six-month intense sabbatical in the greater metro rural area of Toronto, Ontario. When that program ended, she returned to the Saginaw area, where she lived at St. Joseph convent for rest and to wait for the Holy Spirit’s guidance.
About a year and a half later, inspired by the Holy Spirit, Sister Phyllis Klonowski, OP invited her to join her in a pharmacy program she had started, the “Community Prescription Support Program,” which, as a non-profit, provided free medicine to those unable to purchase needed prescriptions. That was the answer to both sisters' prayers. Sister Sylvia describes the ministry as one of the best experiences in all her years of service to God’s less fortunate. After twelve years, the program had done what it could do and closed.
To this day, Sister Sylvia continues volunteering in a variety of ways, assisting those in need.
Sister Margo Tafoya, MSSp
Sister Margo Tafoya, MSSp, was born on March 3, 1948 to Eva (Ontiveros) and Charlie Tafoya in Saginaw, Michigan. Her family at that time consisted of Dennis, her brother who was the eldest, Sylvia, her older sister, and six years later, her youngest sister, Carol Ann. On June 20, 1948, her parents took her to St. Joseph Catholic Church in Saginaw, where she was baptized by Father Ted LaMarre and she began her journey as God’s beloved daughter in the family of God.
Her education began at Houghton Public School until sixth grade. She transferred to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel and then St. Mary’s Cathedral High School, where she graduated in 1966. Once she entered the Mission Sisters of the Holy Spirit, her education is as follows: Marygrove College, Detroit, bachelor of Arts in Ministry; Boston College, Master’s Degree in Theology/Parish Ministry. She also completed a year of CPE at Holy Family Hospital, Methune, MA and received certification as a chaplain through the NACC (National Association of Catholic Chaplains).
On Epiphany 1980, she entered the Mission Sisters of the Holy Spirit of the Diocese of Saginaw, a diocesan community of women religious rooted and dedicated to the Church of Saginaw. She said that her community helped in her formation as a religious sister to discover gifts given to her by God in service to God’s holy people and her community.
Her ministries/service to the people of God are as follows: pastoral minister St. John the Baptist, Carrollton; pastoral associate St. Christopher, Bridgeport; pastoral administrator of St. Paul the Apostle, Ithaca & St. Martin de Porres, Perrinton; Mission Office Coordinator, Diocese of Saginaw until retirement in 2018. She also was an occasional chaplain at St. Mary Medical Hospital. In retirement, she has volunteered at the Toni & Trish Hospice House, St. Francis Home, and continues involvement in the Lay Ministry process of the Diocese of Saginaw, as well as ministry to family and friends.
Sister Margo loves to read, share conversations, laughter and meals with family and friends. She said she has truly been blessed, challenged, stretched, and formed as God’s beloved daughter by God, her community of Mission Sisters, all of those she has served: bishops, priests, staffs, family and friends. She gives thanks for all. In the words of Dag Hammarskjold: “For all that has been, thanks; for all that will be, yes.”
Sister Jeanne Wiest, OP
Sister Jeanne Wiest is the eldest of five children born to John (+ 2019) and Pat Wiest. She was born in Wisconsin and moved around the Midwest with her family, eventually landing in Rochester, Michigan in the middle of her junior year in high school. During college she played on the women’s varsity basketball and field hockey teams. After graduating from Eastern Michigan with degrees in chemistry and physical education, she entered the Dominican Sisters of Adrian (MI).
Her first twenty years of ministry were mostly in higher education:
- Athletic coach and instructor, Siena Heights College (now University)
- Graduate research assistant, Michigan State U (earned MA in Exercise Science and Health Education)
- Coordinator of Primary Prevention Programs at Meadow Brook Health Enhancement Institute, Oakland U.
- Graduate research/teaching assistant and fellow, Purdue U. (earned PhD in Exercise Physiology and Health Promotion)
- Clinical exercise physiologist, Harbor Springs MI
- Assistant professor in Exercise Physiology & Health Promotion, Western Michigan U.
Since 1999, Sr. Jeanne has served in church ministry:
- Pastoral Associate, Pueblo CO
- Earned MA in Pastoral Theology (with concentration in Liturgy)
- Pastoral Associate & Liturgy, Eagle River WI
- Graduate certificate in Preaching from Aquinas Institute
- Pastoral Associate & Liturgy, Hutchinson MN
- Director of Liturgy, Diocese of Owensboro (KY)
- Director of Liturgy, St. Paul MN
Since July 2020, Sister Jeanne serves as Pastoral Associate at Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish in Midland. Her ministry includes liturgy, RCIA, adult faith formation, Christian Service, and pastoral care. She also serves on the diocesan Worship Commission.
During the past 40 years, Sister Jeanne has been a CPR/First Instructor for the American Red Cross (20 yrs); Michigan high school basketball official (20 yrs); MASA Slow pitch umpire (20 yrs), including umpiring home plate for the1987 Knights of Columbus National Championship game; many state championships and 2 national championships.
Sister Jeanne plays clarinet with the Chemical City Band and other community bands in the summer. She enjoys pickleball, biking, hiking, backpacking, camping, kayaking, cross country skiing, and snowshoeing.