A funeral Mass was offered May 4 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Emmitsburg for Sister Jane Marie Otterson, D.C., who gave 71 years to her vocation as a Daughter of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. Sister Jane Marie died April 29, at age 93.
A Philadelphia native, she entered the order in 1947. She earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from the former St. Joseph College in Emmitsburg in 1968, and her master’s degree in library science from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., in 1980.
She taught in Virginia, North Carolina and Washington, D.C., before coming to Mother Seton School in Emmitsburg, 1975-82. In 1984, she returned to the Archdiocese of Baltimore as religious education coordinator at St. Martin Parish, 1984-86, and then parish minister at St. Michael Parish, 1986-90. After ministering in Virginia and South Carolina, Sister Jane Marie returned to Baltimore as pastoral associate of St. Benedict Parish, 2002-03; administrative assistant at My Brother’s Keeper Soup Kitchen, 2004-5; as a volunteer at St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore in its Emergency Department, 2005-08; then assisting the senior sisters at Villa St. Michael and St. Catherine’s Nursing Center in Emmitsburg, 2008-13.
