Sister Helen

Sister Helen Regina Vanick, the retired principal of Charles Village and East Baltimore parochial schools, died of cardiopulmonary collapse Tuesday at her order's Aston, Pa., retirement home. She was 91. Born Ruth Patricia Vanick in Baltimore and raised in Hamilton, she attended St. Anthony of Padua Parochial School and worked as a stenographer at the Montgomery Ward store. In 1935 she entered the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia and received the name Sister Helen Regina. She earned an English degree from Mount St. Mary University in Emmitsburg and a master's degree in education from Loyola College.

A Roman Catholic nun whose advocacy against capital punishment has made her a national figure will be in Annapolis today to lobby for repeal of Maryland's death penalty. Sister Helen Prejean will attend Gov. Martin O'Malley's State of the State address and later meet individually with lawmakers considering whether to overturn the state's 35-year-old death penalty law. O'Malley has called for ending capital punishment, which he has described as costly and an ineffective deterrent to crime.

Sister Helen Dych, who worked for several religious institutions as a teacher and receptionist in Maryland, died Wednesday of heart failure during surgery at Providence Hospital in Washington. She was 76. Sister Helen was a member of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in the Chesapeake Province. For the past six years, she had worked as the daytime receptionist at St. Jerome's Rectory in Hyattsville. "Her passion was people," said Sister Geri McPhee, who knew Sister Helen for about 30 years.

Sister Mary Magdala Thompson, a Sister of Mercy who was a noted educator, psychotherapist and author, died July 14 of heart failure at Providence Hospital in Mobile, Ala. The former Baltimore resident was 89. "There was a common thread in all of the various ministries that she took up during her lifetime, and that was a genuine interest in people and the love and value of each person as an individual," said Sister Helen Amos, former president and...

Sister Helen Jones, a parochial school educator for 45 years, died of a heart attack Sept. 5 at Villa St. Michael in Emmitsburg. She was 87.She began her career in 1934. After teaching biology, chemistry, mathematics, physics and English at parochial schools in Virginia and New York, Sister Helen was assigned to Seton High School in Baltimore in 1970. She also taught at Elizabeth Ann Seton High School in Bladensburg from 1976 to 1979, when she became a docent at the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Emmitsburg.

Sister Helen Teresa Egan, a physics professor at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland for nearly two decades, died of heart failure Thursday at Maria Health Care Center at Villa Assumpta, the motherhouse of her order, the School Sisters of Notre Dame, in Woodbrook. She was 89. Sister Helen Teresa spent 56 years in the classroom, from her first assignment teaching fifth-grade boys at a Catholic school in Massachusetts in 1934 until her last post as a computer coordinator at St. Maria Goretti High School in Hagerstown, from which she retired in 1990.

Sister Helen Carpinelli, a teacher and member of the Holy Union Sisters, died Sunday of pancreatic cancer at the religious order's St. Colman's Convent in Brockton, Mass. She was 65. Born in Camden, N.J., she entered the Roman Catholic order in 1958. She took the name Sister Joseph Francis, which she used until returning to her given name in the 1970s. She earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in education from Loyola College, where she also earned a certificate in pastoral counseling.

For 2 1/2 years, Sister Helen Prejean visited Pat Sonnier, sometimes three or four times a week. They spoke of God and the Bible, of how people will be judged in the afterlife. She visited his home, met his mother, spent hours talking with his younger brother. The two developed a close bond, one of the closest he had ever known.Their time together ended, as she always feared it might, when Louisiana state prison officials strapped Sonnier into a chair and pumped 19,000 volts of electricity through the convicted killer as she watched.

Like the school colors of blue and white, Sister Helen Marie Duffy has worn well at Notre Dame Preparatory School.As biology teacher, boarding mistress and role model, she has woven herself through the fabric of the girls' school for 59 years, her entire religious life. An administrator since 1970 and headmistress since 1979, she has established the Towson school's reputation for academic excellence, fostered what she sees as a need for "refinement" among young women and been a loving -- and demanding -- presence in the lives of more than 5,000 graduates.

Sister Helen Marie Duffy, a retired headmistress of Notre Dame Preparatory School who demonstrated compassion, courage and selflessness to thousands of students during her six decades at the school, died Friday at age 87. She died at Villa Assumpta, the mother house for retired School Sisters of Notre Dame, of complications from a fall she suffered Aug. 13. Sister Helen Marie was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. As a teen-ager, she taught impoverished children in...

Sister Francis Helen Lewandowski, a member of the Sisters of Bon Secours and a retired registered nurse, died of undetermined causes Nov. 17 at her order's provincial house in Marriottsville. She had celebrated her 100th birthday earlier this year. Anna Elinor Lewandowski was born and raised in Baltimore. She was an Eastern High School graduate and earned her nursing degree from St. Agnes Hospital School of Nursing. Sister Helen Francis entered the Sisters of Bon Secours in 1934 and professed her vows in 1937.

Sister Helen Fish, a member of the School Sisters of Notre Dame and a licensed addictions counselor who as a recovering alcoholic used her own addiction to help inspire others to regain their lives, died of pneumonia June 19 at St. Joseph Medical Center. Sister Helen was 76. She was born Helen May Fish in Baltimore and raised in Govans. She attended the Institute of Notre Dame and then worked briefly as a clerk for Penn Lumber Co. before entering the School Sisters of Notre Dame in 1953.

Sister Helen Regina Vanick, the retired principal of Charles Village and East Baltimore parochial schools, died of cardiopulmonary collapse Tuesday at her order's Aston, Pa., retirement home. She was 91. Born Ruth Patricia Vanick in Baltimore and raised in Hamilton, she attended St. Anthony of Padua Parochial School and worked as a stenographer at the Montgomery Ward store. In 1935 she entered the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia and received the name Sister Helen Regina. She earned an English degree from Mount St. Mary University in Emmitsburg and a master's degree in education from Loyola College.

Suzanne L. Carson, who headed The Villa nursing home after working as a University of Maryland Shock Trauma lab chief, died of stroke and diabetic complications Sunday at her Parkville home. She was 57. Born and raised in Toledo, Ohio, she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology at Niagara University in Lewiston, N.Y., and a medical technology degree from a U.S. Public Service Hospital, also in upstate New York, the next year. She then received a master's degree in microbiology from Wagner College on Staten Island, N.Y. After moving to Maryland in 1980, she worked at the University of Maryland R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center and was a laboratory manager in the 1990s.

Sister Helen Amos is this year celebrating her 50th anniversary of coming to Baltimore and her 50th year as a Sister of Mercy and is helping to lead an important effort to end or sharply reduce homelessness in the city over the next 10 years. Born in Mobile, Ala., she came here to become a novitiate with the Sisters of Mercy at Mount St. Agnes College, which in those days was on a hillside in Mount Washington. She later taught for a while in Georgia and lived in Silver Spring for eight years when she was president of the Sisters of Mercy.

Sister Helen Prejean was living in a New Orleans housing project, ministering to poor, black families and teaching high school dropouts, when she received an invitation in 1982 to write to a death row inmate. The Roman Catholic nun accepted, viewing the task as an extension of her work with the poor. Her two-year relationship as a spiritual adviser to convicted murderer Elmo Patrick Sonnier, prisoner No. 95281 on Louisiana's death row, became the basis for her widely acclaimed memoir, Dead Man Walking.

A Mass of Christian burial for Sister Helen Barbara Schild, a retired teacher and principal, will be said at 2 p.m. today at Villa Assumpta, 6401 N. Charles St.Sister Helen, who took the religious name Mary Ersilia when she joined the School Sisters of Notre Dame more than 50 years ago, died Friday night in the infirmary at Villa Assumpta after a long illness. She was 79.Sister Helen had been living at Villa Assumpta, the mother house of the School Sisters of Notre Dame.Born in Braddock, Pa., Sister Helen became a nun in 1928 and professed her vows in 1932.