In loving memory…

Funeral Arrangements:

Tuesday, January, 8, 2019

Church of Our Lady of Loretto
Saint Mary’s, Notre Dame, Indiana

Visitation: 9 a.m.

Prayers in the Presence of the Body: 10:15 a.m.; Mass of the Resurrection to follow 

Sister Dorothy Kebba, CSC
(Sister M. Mount Carmel)
April 26, 1920 - January 3, 2019  

Word has been received of the death of Sister Dorothy Kebba, CSC, who died at 11:40 a.m. on January 3, 2019, in Saint Mary’s Convent, Notre Dame, Indiana. Sister Dorothy Kebba entered the Congregation from New York City, New York, on January 30, 1946. Her initial profession of vows took place on August 15, 1948. 

Please join us in prayer for Sister as we renew our faith in the resurrected Jesus and strengthen our hope that all the departed will be raised to eternal life.

Sister Dorothy let go the first days of 2019 and died quickly if one can say dying at 98 is “quick.” She came to Saint Mary’s, the motherhouse of the Sisters of the Holy Cross, in August 2001 having had to slow down after years of intense ministry experiences since 1948. Like many women, whether in the convent or not, she described herself as having always been “rushing, hurrying.”

Dorothy Mae Kebba was born April 26, 1920, in Glen Lyon, Pennsylvania, to Michael Kebba and Mary Barron. When she was two months old, the family moved to New York City where her father worked.  She was raised in New York City and attended public schools all her life. Her sister Norma Jean died at age 23. Her older brother William died in November 2006. Her brother Michael James “Jim” Kebba, the only living member of her immediate family, has had a strong bond with Sister Dorothy these last years.

When Dorothy entered the Sisters of the Holy Cross in 1946, she had already worked as an executive secretary for five years using her salary to help her family. Her former bosses in New York City, at Montgomery Ward and Crucible Steel Company of America, gave her superb recommendations for any future secretarial position. Her male supervisors found her to be conscientious, industrious, alert and accurate in detail. “She learns readily, accepts and handles responsibility, maintains complete files, has good personnel and customer approach and is adaptable.” Dorothy’s clerical qualities, “paramount requisites” for a capable executive secretary, served her well in ministry and in community as a Sister of the Holy Cross for nearly 73 years. “She was a good woman with whom to share community.”

As Sister M. Mount Carmel, the name she received at the reception of the holy habit on August 15, 1946, she was assigned to Catholic schools in Washington, D.C., Greenbelt, Maryland, and Batavia, New York. She taught first through eighth grades from 1948 to 1957. Her business skills came to the forefront again until 2001. In the days when hospital business offices were never closed, Sister Dorothy was the business office manager at Mount Carmel Hospital, Columbus, Ohio (1957-1968), and Saint John’s Hospital, Anderson, Indiana (1968-1976). Sister Dorothy considered her ministry working directly for the sisters as the Midwest regional secretary (1976-1986) and office administrator (1986-1988) as “the BEST there is!” After a sabbatical and year of profound spiritual renewal, she was the campus ministry secretary at the University of Notre Dame (1989-1998) then a receptionist at the University of Notre Dame Basilica of the Sacred Heart (until 2001) where “she was always kind and welcoming.”  

Sister wrote that her prayer for herself was that at the hour of her death she would hear God calling, “Yes, Dorothy, do rush, do hurry, but run into my arms instead because that is where I want you to be.”

Written by Sister Catherine Osimo, CSC