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Sister Mary Imelda Pautler, SSND turns 100

December 2, 2009

On Saturday, November 28, family and friends of Sister Imelda Pautler gathered at the Notre Dame Motherhouse in Waterdown to celebrate her 100th birthday.

Sister Imelda Pautler was born in Preston (now part of Cambridge, Ontario) on December 2, 1909. She is the second oldest of eight children (four boys and four girls) of William Edward Pautler and Mary Hart.

Three daughters entered religious life: Marie, who became Sister Imelda when she joined the School Sisters of Notre Dame (SSND); Berenice, who became Sister Mary Rose when she joined the Congregation of St. Joseph (CSJ); and Eileen who joined the School Sisters of Notre Dame as well and is currently in parish ministry in Fort St. John, British Columbia. Sister Rose died in May 2008. Sister Eileen was present on Saturday. She is Sister Imelda’s only surviving sibling.

Sister Imelda attended St. Clement’s Separate School in Preston for grades one to eight and began her high school education at St. Anne High School in Kitchener. Young girls interested in becoming School Sisters of Notre Dame attended St. Annes’s. When the Notre Dame Academy in Waterdown opened in 1927, she moved to Waterdown and finished her high school education there. She attended Teacher’s College in Hamilton in 1928-29.

She entered the School Sisters of Notre Dame on July 30, 1929; she celebrated her 80th anniversary as a School Sister of Notre Dame this year.

Her ministries over the years have been varied. Sister Imelda taught for 40 years; she was a principal for 13 of those years, and a Home Economics teacher for 10. In the early 1940s she was in charge of the young women living at the Notre Dame Motherhouse who were discerning their call to become sisters. In the early 1970s she was the Director of Maintenance at the Notre Dame Motherhouse and then worked at the international administrative offices for the religious congregation in Rome, Italy as a homemaker and housekeeper (1976-1979). When she returned to Ontario, she worked as seamstress at the Notre Dame Motherhouse until 1989 and then continued working at various tasks.

Commenting on her long life, Sister Imelda said, “I think I have felt quite happy in my life. I have no regrets.”

The School Sisters of Notre Dame is an international community of vowed women religious in mission. The Canadian Province is one unit within this congregation. Together with more than 3,500 Sisters globally, they dedicate their lives to transforming the world through education, especially by empowering women, children, and persons who are poor. More information about the School Sisters of Notre Dame may be found at www.ssndcanadian.org.

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Patricia Stortz, Communications Coordinator

Transforming the world through education.