Sisiter Rose Marie Mailhot

List of Deceased Sisters

Date of Death 15/10/2023

  Born: 23 April 1928

  Professed: 2 February 1949

  Deceased: 15 October 2023

"We are missionaries for the whole of our life wherever we are sent." Const. # 1

Sister Rose Marie was born in Waltham, Massachusetts, USA, on April 23, 1928, but was raised in Belmont. Her father, Henry Mailhot, from Montreal Canada, and her mother, Rose Marie Roch, would raise Rose Marie and three Boys: Edward, Robert and Richard. Their mother died very young. In fourth grade, Henry sent Rose Marie to a boarding school run by the Franciscan Sisters of Mary. Through catechism classes, Rose Marie came to know Jesus. She began to sense an awareness of a vocation by the time she entered high school with the Dominican Sisters. It was there that the SMSM gave a presentation on their missions and Rose Marie feit her call to be a missionary.

Rose Marie would enter the Missionary Sisters of the Society of Mary on July 31, 1946 in Bedford Massachusetts. After 2 h years, she would be Professed on February 2, 1949 as Sr. Mary Corita. In order to prepare her for her mission work, she would attend Sr. John's Nursing School in Lowell where she obtained her RN.

After final vows, in 1955, she was assigned to mission at Hansen Home in Jamaica, WI. There she would spend her time from morning to evening addressing the medical needs of the patients, supervising activities and entering into their life.

In 1957, she returned to Boston College where she graduated Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and Masters in Nursing Education in 1963. She would then give service and help the Region financially by being an Instructor in Nursing at Catherine Laboure' School of Nursing in Dorchester until 1967.

In 1967, she was assigned to our newest mission in Peru. She spent the next several years in and out of Peru. She did a variety of clinic work and was part of a pastoral team that travelled by horseback, for weeks at a time, from village-to-village teaching catechetics, giving medical care and administering the sacraments. As if this was not extraordinary enough, these forays into the mountains passed through areas where terrorists, catled the Shining Path, were kilting village leaders, priests and Sisters as they tried to indoctrinate and overtake the villagers. Another ever present danger for all was tuberculosis.

In 1992, Rose Marie returned to the US, and joined our sisters in Rocky Creek Village in Tampa, Florida, to help her ailing father there, and assisted him until he died in 1994.

In 1994 she came to Lexington where she gave community service until being called to make her Marist renewal in France. A precious time to focus on Marist Spirituality and to meditate on Mary and Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

in June of 1996 she returned to her beloved Jamaica, her first mission. Being a seasoned missionary, who could put her hand to anything, she was now the Secretary to Bishop Charles Dufour in Montego Bay Diocese. At her Golden Jubilee in 1999, he extolled her long and dedicated Religious life and her quiet welcoming personality that touched lives without pretense. Three more years were spent in pastoral work in the Montego Bay Diocese, until, in 2003, she would encounter a mission like no other. She was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. She was in the States for months of chemotherapy and acupuncture until pronounced cured. Rose Marie spent another year in Jamaica before returning to Rocky Creek in Tampa, Fl. In 2005. She would say that she gets "itchy feet" and in 2011, her feet led her to our Mission in Memphis Tennessee. Here she would live in the parish of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and participate in numerous activities. Msgr. Val Handwerker described her as a person who brings the presence of Christ to others. She would continue in Memphis until 2012.

Rose Marie returned to Belmont and underwent medical tests, the diagnosis this time was breast cancer. It was time to remain close to the home base so she generously gave service in Belmont and Framingham before moving to Marillac Assisted Living in Wellesley, MA in 2013. She would remain there until her Cancer reoccurred and she was admitted to Maristhill Nursing Home in March, 2017. She was back in the town of her birth. This mission would require all her gifts of love, warmth, humor, faith, and hope. Her friendly outreach to caregivers, residents and visitors endeared her to all.

Thank you, Rose Marie, for bringing your best self to life. In her last days, her constant mantra was: "All is well and all manner of things will be well."

Sisters Hellen Muller and Judith Sheridan