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Sister Patricia Huesman, SSND, served Baltimore Archdiocese as educator, administrator

Sister Patricia Huesman, a vowed member of the School Sisters of Notre Dame for 64 years, who ministered as an educator and administrator in Baltimore City and across Maryland for more than 40 years, died Sept. 4. She was 86.

A Baltimore native, Sister Patricia attended the former parish schools at St. Martin and Fourteen Holy Martyrs, where she was confirmed by Archbishop Michael Curley. She left St. Martin’s High School after one year and transferred to the SSND Aspiranture at Holy Angels Academy in Fort Lee, N.J. She studied at the former Notre Dame Teacher Training School, then taught second grade at the former parish school at St. Mary of the Assumption in Govans, Baltimore. Received into the novitiate in July 1954, she was given the name, Sister Mary Omer.

After teaching assignments in Rochester, N.Y., Washington, D.C., and Keyser, W.Va., she returned to Baltimore to teach at Our Lady of Fatima School. In 1974, she became vice principal of St. Matthew School in Northwood, and in 1976 was appointed principal of Bishop John Neumann School, also in Baltimore.

She moved to St. Benedict Parish in 1985 as the director of religious education, and also served as a teacher and pastoral associate there. Sister Patricia served two years as principal of Good Shepherd School in Perryville, and in 1989 became the director of religious education at St. Agnes Parish in Catonsville. She served as a pastoral associate at Our Lady of the Angels at Charlestown Retirement Community in Catonsville, 2004-15.

She had earned bachelor’s degree in education what was then the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, and a master’s degree in education in reading and elementary education from what was then Loyola College in Baltimore.

A funeral Mass was offered Sept. 10, concelebrated by two of her former students, Father John Gagnier and Redemptorist Father Robert Wojtek.