OBITUARY | Sister Mary Joan Dacey, CSJ

A funeral Mass for Sister Mary Joan Dacey, CSJ, was held Jan. 29 at the Nazareth Living Center Chapel in south St. Louis County. Sister Mary Joan died Jan. 15 at Nazareth Living Center. She was 88.
Sister Mary Joan was born on May 16, 1936, in St. Louis to parents James and Johannah (Gleason) Dacey. She entered the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in 1954 and was received into the novitiate in 1955 as Sister Mary Michaeline. She received a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Fontbonne College (now University) in St. Louis in 1970.
From the late 1950s to the early 1970s, Sister Mary Joan taught at a several grade schools across the country including Holy Rosary in Kansas City, Missouri; St. Viator in Chicago; St. Rose of Lima in Houston; St. Francis Xavier in Brunswick, Georgia; and St. Mary in Littleton, Colorado.
In St. Louis, she taught at St. Mary Magdalen, St. Jude, St. Anthony of Padua and St. Gregory schools. In 1983, Sister Mary Joan returned to St. Anthony of Padua and taught there until 1996.
After a two-year sabbatical, she served as the assistant activity director and then activity director at St. Elizabeth Adult Day Care Center in Maplewood. In 2000, she began 12 years of service in the Development Office at St. Joseph’s Academy in Frontenac.
Sister Mary Joan moved to Nazareth Living Center in 2012 and lived out her ministry of prayer and witness until her death.
Interment was in Resurrection Cemetery.