Maryknoll Sister Marguerite Retter served more than 20 years in Hawaii

Sister Marguerite Retter, who served in Hawaii for more than 20 years as a school teacher, a retreat center volunteer and in adult literacy work, died peacefully in Maryknoll Residential Care IV at Maryknoll, NY on April 11. She was 81 and a Maryknoll Sister for 63 years.

Sister Marguerite was known as a very good and well-loved teacher by her junior high students at Maryknoll School in Honolulu. She was always gracious and gentle, and had a smile and greeting for everyone she met.

Sister Marguerite came to Hawaii in 1965 to teach social sciences at Maryknoll. She left in 1980 to work at Maryknoll’s communications office and treasury in New York but returned in 1985. Back in Hawaii, she volunteered at the Spiritual Life Center in Manoa and was involved in adult literacy and Hawaii Literacy Project Respect, an outreach to the elderly.

Failing health caused her to move in 1992 to the Maryknoll retirement community in Monrovia, Calif. There she continued her volunteer work until retiring to Maryknoll, N.Y., in 2005.

Marguerite Retter was born in Philadelphia on Sep. 3, 1927. After graduating from high school, she worked for one year at the Bell Telephone Company before entering Maryknoll in 1946 at Maryknoll, N.Y.

She received the religious name Sister M. Francis Marguerite, making her first profession of vows on April 6, 1949, and her final vows on the same day in 1952. She received a bachelor’s in education degree from Mary Rogers College in 1952.

Her first two teaching assignments were at parochial schools in New York City. In 1962, she went to San Juan Capistrano, the Franciscan mission in California, to teach at the Maryknoll Sisters grade school there. Sister Marguerite’s next assignment after that was Hawaii.

Sister Marguerite is survived by a sister-in-law, Patricia Retter of Philadelphia, two nieces, Patricia Flanagan and Eileen Flanagan also of Philadelphia, three grand nephews, and cousins.

Sister Marguerite donated her body to scientific research. A memorial Mass of remembrance was celebrated on April 16 at the Maryknoll Sisters Center in New York.