Funeral services for Sister Mary Bryan Owens, SSND, were held Aug. 28 in the Marian Chapel at The Sarah Community in Bridgeton. Sister Mary Bryan, 88, died Aug. 13, 2026, at Elizabeth House, The Sarah Community, with sisters praying at her bedside.
The second of seven children was born to Virginia (Winkler) and Edward Owens on April 23, 1938, in St. Louis. She was baptized at St. Aloysius Gonzaga Church on May 29, 1938, and named Mary Virginia. She grew up with five bothers. Her only sister was born 20 years later when Mary was in the juniorate at Sancta Maria in Ripa. The family lived with her paternal grandparents in a modest five-room home on the Hill in south St. Louis.
Mary attended St. Aloysius Gonzaga School, staffed by the School Sisters of Notre Dame, and took piano lessons at the parish convent. She was struck by how happy the sisters were and how they enjoyed living with each other. She enrolled at Rosati-Kain High School where the SSND and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet were her teachers. By the spring of her senior year, she knew in her heart that there was only one thing she wanted to do with the rest of her life. When she told her parents, her mother was thrilled.
Mary entered the candidature at Sancta Maria in Ripa in St. Louis on Sept. 1, 1955. She was received into the novitiate on Aug. 1, 1956, and given the name Mary Bryan. She professed first vows on Aug. 3, 1957, and final vows on Aug. 3, 1963.
After first profession, she and 11 classmates remained at Sancta Maria in Ripa to complete their college degrees. They were the first group who were not sent to teach immediately after profession and the first junior sisters living in the juniorate at the former St. Louis Province Motherhouse.
She received a bachelor’s degree in English from the former Notre Dame College in St. Louis in 1960. Ten years later, she earned a master’s degree in English from Saint Louis University.
Sister Mary Bryan ministered for 47 years in secondary education. She taught at Mater Dei High School in Breese, Illinois (1959-68); Academy of Notre Dame in Belleville, Illinois (1968-71); and St. Paul High School in Santa Fe Springs, California (1971-74). She was an associate administrator at Althoff Catholic High School in Belleville (1974-78). She then continued on in multiple administrator roles at Notre Dame High School in St. Louis (1978-84); St. Francis Borgia High School in Washington (1984-95); St. Vincent High School in Perryville (1996-99); and lastly, Gibault Catholic High School in Waterloo, Illinois (1999-2007).
In 2007, she left full-time formal academics and began teaching English to refugees at the St. Louis International Institute. In 2019, she mentored teenage immigrants at Notre Dame High School in St. Louis for a semester. She then performed volunteer services for the Immigrant/Refugee Women’s Program, later known as the Immigrant Home English Learning Program in St. Louis.
She was missioned to Mother of Perpetual Help Residence in St. Louis in 2021. By 2026, her health was failing and she was transferred to Elizabeth House, The Sarah Community, and placed on hospice in early August.
Sister Mary Bryan was preceded in death by her parents, Virginia and Edward Owens, and her brother Robert. She is survived by her brothers Paul (Carol), Thomas (Linda), Michael (fiancée Patricia), Terrance (Helen); her sister, Ann (Lee) Whitney; classmates, friends, School Sisters of Notre Dame in community and SSND Associates.
She gifted her body to Saint. Louis University School of Medicine.
