Sister M. Joetta McGill, a member and retired treasurer general of the Oblate Sisters of Providence, died of heart failure Wednesday at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. She was 84.
She was born Rebecca McGill in New Haven, Ky., where she was raised. She graduated from the Catholic Colored High School under the guidance of the Ursuline Sisters in Louisville, Ky. She then earned a bachelor's degree in education from St. Mary's College in Leavenworth, Kan.
She entered the Oblate Sisters of Providence religious order in 1938 and took her vows in 1941.
From 1942 to 1945, she worked as a secretary at the motherhouse at the St. Frances Convent on Chase Street in Baltimore.
In 1945, she began teaching seventh- and eighth-graders at St. Frances Orphan Home in Normandy, Mo., where she also served as prefect for the girls.
She was so highly regarded by the girls that many of them kept in touch with her years later, said the order's Sister Celestina Johnson.
"To this day, these ladies recall Sister Joetta's `motherly' concern for them while they were growing up," Sister Celestina said. "She was a very compassionate woman. A loving, sensitive woman. They appreciated what she did for them when they had no mother."
In 1948, she returned to Baltimore, where she became treasurer and a teacher at St. Frances Academy.
When the motherhouse relocated in 1960 to Our Lady of Mount Providence Convent in Arbutus, she became treasurer general.
She worked in this capacity until last year, when her health began to fail and she was moved into the health care unit of the motherhouse. Though confined to the unit, she served as assistant to the treasurer general.
She also served as the motherhouse's director of programs, coordinating the community's use of the convent's facilities.
She represented the order by attending funerals of friends and benefactors in the community, Sister Celestina said.
A Mass of Christian burial will be offered at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow in the chapel of Our Lady of Mount Providence Convent at 701 Gun Road in Arbutus.
She is survived by two nephews.
