School Sister of Notre Dame Mary Joselia Colbert died Jan. 28, 2013, at Lourdes Health Care Center in Wilton, Conn. She was 88 years old. Sister Joselia specialized in music, drama, history and government during the course of her career and served in five states along the East Coast.
Born Mary Therese Colbert, the Boston, Mass., native entered the congregation in 1941. She professed her first vows in 1944 and her final vows in 1950.
Sister Colbert earned a bachelor’s degree in education in 1958 from the College of Saint Rose in Albany. She earned her master’s in American history in 1961 from St. John’s University on Long Island, N.Y.
She taught at schools in New York, Maryland, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. She moved to Rochester in 1980 and spent her final years of teaching at Bishop Kearney High School (1980-91) in Irondequoit.
She moved to Villa Notre Dame, home to retired SSNDs in Wilton, Conn., in 1991 but continued to volunteer as a switchboard operator, in the Development Office and in community service for several years. She moved to Lourdes Health Care Center, adjacent to Villa Notre Dame, in 2004.
Sister Colbert is survived by a cousin, Shawn McCarthy of St. John’s, Newfoundland. Her sister, Sister Rita Marie Colbert, SSND, died in 1994.
A Mass of Christian burial was held Jan. 31, 2013, at the chapel at Villa Notre Dame in Wilton. Burial followed at St. Mary Cemetery in Bethel, Conn.
Tags: Religious Orders
