Former local superior of Daughters of Charity dies

Sister Celeste Donohue, who served as an educator and local superior of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, died Oct. 16 at Villa St. Michael in Emmitsburg. She was 92, and had spent 74 years with the order.

The Baltimore native was a 1942 graduate of the former Seton High School. She earned her bachelor’s degree in English from St. Joseph College in Emmitsburg and her master’s degree in European History from the University of Detroit. She taught or served as a principal in Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and, from 1962 to 1970, at Elizabeth Seton High School in Bladensburg.

She served as local community superior in Delaware, 1957-60, and Washington, 1960-61. She returned to the nation’s capital to minister as a patient visitor at Providence Hospital, and served as a pastoral minister to the elderly at St. Pius X Parish in Greensboro, N.C., 1990-98.

A funeral Mass was offered Oct. 19 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Emmitsburg, where Sister Celeste had served as a docent, 1985-86 and 1988-90.

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