Sister Mary Gerald McCloskey, D.C., spent 56 years serving in Bolivia

A funeral Mass was offered April 6 in the Daughters’ Villa St. Michael Chapel in Emmitsburg for Sister Mary Gerald McCloskey. A Baltimore native, she served 66 years as a Daughter of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, including 56 as a missioner in Bolivia. Sister Mary Gerald died April 1, at age 85.

She graduated from Baltimore’s Seton High in 1953, and later that year joined the Daughters of Charity from St. Dominic Parish in Hamilton. She would go on to earn a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from St. Joseph College in Emmitsburg.

Sister Mary Gerald taught in Washington, D.C., and at Mother Seton School in Emmitsburg. In 1961, she was missioned to Bolivia. She taught briefly in Trinidad, Bolivia, then spent most of her 56 years there doing pastoral work, according to an obituary provided by her order, “in the Bolivian Altiplano … traveling by houseboat with a small team to minister to the Indigenous Peoples in many villages of the Bolivian rainforests. There, she was instrumental in building schools, forming religious leaders, promoting rights of women and their families, and addressing the health needs of the villages.”

Sister Mary Gerald returned to the U.S. in 2017. In 2019, she was missioned to Hardeeville, S.C., where she served until 2020.

A Memorial Mass will be held in Baltimore at a later date.

 

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