Sister Michael Kathleen Deane, OSF

Sister Michael Kathleen Deane died at Assisi House in Aston, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday 13 October 2026. She was 96 and had been a professed member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia for 75 years. No cause of death was given. A Christian wake service and a livestreamed Mass of Christian Burial were held at Assisi House on 19 October 2026, followed by burial in Our Lady of Angels Cemetery in Aston. She was survived by her nieces and nephews and her Franciscan community. Her death was reported by the Catholic Review on 23 October 2026, and many former students posted tributes on social media. Donations in her name were invited to the Sisters of St. Francis Foundation.

Mary Kathleen Deane was born in Washington, D.C., in 1930 to Henry and Kathleen Deane. She grew up with her brothers, Borden and William, as a member of Nativity Parish, and graduated from the Academy of the Holy Names. She credited her vocation to the influence of both parents: her Catholic father and her mother, whom she described as very devout and prayerful and who, as she liked to note, was a member of the Takoma Park Baptist Church.

She entered the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia in 1948, received the religious name Sister Michael Kathleen, and professed her first vows in 1951. She went on to earn a bachelor's degree in English from Mount St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg, Maryland, and a master's degree in education, in management and supervision, from what is now Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore.

Sister Michael gave almost all of her 75 years of religious life to Catholic education, 58 of them in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. She began teaching elementary grades in Baltimore City at Saints Philip and James School, St. Katharine School and Shrine of the Little Flower School. She then taught sixth, seventh and eighth grades at Immaculate Conception School in Towson and seventh and eighth grades at St. Clement Mary Hofbauer School in Rosedale.

She spent five years in the Archdiocese of Washington teaching seventh grade at Our Lady of Lourdes School in Bethesda, Maryland. One of her pupils there was Martin O'Malley, whom her congregation remembered as a fine, ambitious student who became student council president. He later served as mayor of Baltimore and governor of Maryland.

She returned to St. Clement Mary Hofbauer School as principal and held the post for 23 years. She led the school through accreditation and brought computers into its classrooms. She made a point of knowing every child by name, sent each student a birthday card with a handwritten note, and prayed for her pupils every day. Her most powerful classroom tool, she said, was "the look," which stopped students in their tracks. After retiring as principal she volunteered for 12 years at The Catholic High School of Baltimore, because, her sisters wrote, she simply was not ready to stop being around students.

Sister Michael loved her family, gardening and music, and was a devoted fan of the Baltimore Orioles and Baltimore Ravens. Her congregation remembered her fabulous sense of humour, especially in the company of her close friend Sister Georgina, with whom she enjoyed long browsing trips to the Hallmark store. She loved doing jigsaw puzzles with the other sisters and had a running joke of hiding the last piece so that she could be the one to finish.

When she celebrated her 50th jubilee in 2001, Martin O'Malley, then mayor of Baltimore, surprised her at St. Clement and proclaimed Sister Michael Kathleen Day, telling the school that she had made a difference in thousands of lives. When his band later recorded a song honouring the nuns who taught him, The Baltimore Sun turned to her for the story. In 2014 she moved to Assisi House, her congregation's retirement residence in Aston, Pennsylvania, where she continued in prayer and hospitality ministry.

Across almost six decades Sister Michael taught or led thousands of children in Baltimore area Catholic schools, and for 23 years she shaped St. Clement Mary Hofbauer School as its principal. Sister Sheila Mary remembered her as the most wonderful principal, fair and loving in all she did. Her congregation summed up her life with the words of her former student Martin O'Malley: one person can make a difference, and each of us has to try.