Sister Mary Elizabeth Semmelmayer, a native of Rochester, died on Dec. 25, 2010, at her brother’s home in Ocala, Fla., where she was spending the Christmas holiday. She was 81.
Sister Semmelmayer entered the congregation in 1947. She received the religious name Maria Josepha in 1949 and made her first vows in 1950, the same year she began her teaching career.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in education from the College of Notre Dame of Maryland in 1962 and a master’s degree in education administration from Loyola College in 1971.
Sister Semmelmayer served as a teacher and a principal at schools in Pennsylvania, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. She was elected to the Provincial Council of the then-Eastern Province of the School Sisters of Notre Dame in 1983 and served four years at the motherhouse in Baltimore. She returned to education in 1987, then in 2007 began a ministry of community service as a resident of Villa Assumpta in Baltimore.
She is survived by her brother and sister-in-law, Frank and Shirley Semmelmayer of Ocala, Fla; sister and brother-in-law, Kay and Hank Caraducci of Rochester; sister-in-law Lois Semmelmayer of Roseville, Calif.; and many nieces, nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews.
A Mass of Christian burial was celebrated Jan. 5, 2011, at the chapel of Villa Assumpta. Burial followed at Villa Maria Cemetery in Glen Arm, Md.
