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Sr Crescentia Peschka OP |
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July 12, 1913 – January 17, 2009 By Sister Elaine Osborne OP Sister Crescentia was one of ten children born and raised in Odin, Kansas. She entered our Dominican Community in 1928. She was 95 years old when she died, having celebrated silver, golden, diamond, and seventy year jubilees, and in 2006 she celebrated 75 years of religious profession. Her wake service and funeral Mass were attended by many, many nieces and nephews from her large number of siblings. Her only living sibling, Cynthia, was also in attendance. It was obvious that her family was close and that they participated in church events with gusto; both men and women filled the Chapel with beautiful singing and touching stories at the services. Sister Crescentia began a lifelong ministry in education in elementary parochial schools in 1932. In the next 60 years she taught grades 1 - 8 in fourteen different schools in Kansas (Schulte, Willowdale, Sharon, Garden Plain, Beaver, Clonmel, Strong City, Dubuque, Belpre, Seward, LaCrosse, Haysville, Great Bend St. Rose, and St. Leo) and Sapulpa in Oklahoma. In seven of these schools she was also the principal. Her first teaching assignment was in Schulte, Kansas, where she taught the first four grades in one room. She was to return to Schulte three more times. She also taught more than once in Clonmel and Haysville. After slowing down in 1988, she still taught part time. At the wake service Sister Irene Hartman, reflecting on Sister Crescentia’s life, said, “Who can count the many children whom she touched with a gracious sense of mission, leaving behind a long-lasting impression of one of God’s chosen teachers? It was a sad day in 1993 when Sister Crescentia had to give up teaching and retire to the Motherhouse.” But one more mission awaited her – the call of her God to come Home. She died in the year dedicated to St. Paul by the Holy Father. St Paul was a great teacher of the ways of Jesus. Like St. Paul, Sister Crescentia followed God’s call to teach the ways of God. And like St. Paul who spoke of the “earthly tent that is being folded up,” and like St. Luke who said, “Keep you lamps lit,” she had her lamp lit during long years of waiting for the Bridegroom’s arrival. She opened the door to her God when the call finally came, folded the tent of her earthly city, and went to the everlasting Home not made by hands. |
