A funeral Mass for Loretto Sister Ann Gohl was celebrated Dec. 1 in the Church of the Seven Dolors on the grounds of Loretto Motherhouse in Nerinx, Kentucky. Sister Ann, a longtime history teacher who also worked as a travel consultant, died Nov. 28 at Loretto Motherhouse Infirmary. She was 97 and in the 74th year of her life as a Sister of Loretto at the Foot of the Cross.
Born Lois Ann Gohl in Webster Groves, she attended Loretto Academy in St. Louis, graduating in 1941. In her senior year of high school on Easter Sunday, she was baptized at St. Francis Xavier (College) Church in St. Louis. She entered the Sisters of Loretto in 1945, left temporarily and re-entered in 1947. She was received into the congregation once again in 1948, taking the name Sister Mary Fidelia. She made her first vows in 1950 and her final vows in 1953. Sister Ann earned a bachelor’s degree in history, with minors in English and education, in 1959 from Loretto Heights College in Denver, a master’s in history in 1967 from Loyola University in Chicago and a doctorate in history in 1976 from the University of Missouri at Columbia.
In the St. Louis Archdiocese, Sister Ann taught at St. Paul the Apostle School in Pine Lawn from 1951-53. She resided at The Sarah Community in Bridgeton from 2002-10 and resided at the Loretto Center in Webster Groves in 2010.
Elsewhere, Sister Ann taught mainly history to elementary, secondary and college students for about 25 years in Kansas City, Missouri, and in Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky and Texas. Retiring from teaching in the early 1980s, she then served as a travel consultant and later worked as a docent in living history museums in Colorado and California.
Sister Ann moved in late 2010 to Loretto Motherhouse Infirmary, where she resided until her death. Burial took place in the Loretto Motherhouse Cemetery.
