A memorial Mass for Sister Margaret Mary Cain, OSU, will be celebrated at 2 p.m. Tuesday, July 1, at Ursuline Academy Chapel in Kirkwood. Sister Margaret Mary died peacefully June 9 in Eureka. She was 94.
The daughter of James Vincent and Margaret Cecilia Keenan Cain, she was born on Dec. 6, 1931, in Republican City, Nebraska. She entered the Ursuline community on July 15, 1950, and professed her vows on Jan. 16, 1953. She received a bachelor’s degree in history from the College of New Rochelle and studied for a master’s degree in spirituality and theology with the College Sisters of Immaculate Heart.
Sister Margaret Mary served in the Ursuline Sisters’ Brazilian mission for 63 years, heading to Rio de Janeiro to pursue her passion for mission work in July 1956 after teaching briefly at a parochial school in Galveston, Texas. She transferred to the Ursulines’ province in Brazil in 1971.
Besides Rio de Janeiro, Sister Margaret Mary served in Brazil in Ilheus, Bahia; Salvador, Bahia; and Ribeirao Preto, Sao Paulo. She taught English and catechetics and was a principal. She was very resourceful in giving her young students hands-on learning experiences with few supplies, even using an egg carton filled with symbols she made to represent holy week and the stations of the cross. She evangelized through visits and encounters with people in poor neighborhoods and in prisons.
“She has given her whole life to Brazil,” said one sister who spent time with her on visits to Brazil. “She was always very close to the people in need, and she had a kind of vision of how she could help them believe in and develop their own possibilities, even in the midst of deep poverty.”
She also was known for the smile on face and glee in her eyes. She was a voracious reader and made copious notes about ideas and information she wanted to revisit.
Sister Margaret Mary returned to the Central Province in 2019 and lived in Alton, Illinois, until 2025, when she moved to Francis Place. She donated her body to science.
