Sister Sylvia Borgmeier, SSND
(formerly Sister Mary RaeAnn)

First Profession July 17, 1958
Motherhouse
Mankato, Minnesota

Sister Sylvia Borgmeier, 81, died Thursday, March 5, 2020, in Notre Dame
Health Care, Our Lady of Good Counsel, Mankato, Minnesota. She had
suffered a massive stroke the preceding day. Family members and sisters kept
vigil with Sister Sylvia in her final days.

Sister Sylvia was born October 3, 1938, in Mankato and baptized Sylvia Ann
two weeks later at SS. Peter & Paul Church, Mankato. Sister Sylvia’s great
grandfather, Frank Borgmeier, was among the original group of Catholic
pioneers who settled in the Mankato area in 1854. It was his homestead that
Sylvia’s father farmed.

Sylvia attended SS. Peter & Paul Grade School and Loyola High School,
graduating in 1956. During her high school years, she prayed about the
question, “Can I become a sister?” Sylvia described her response, “It was
time now as I graduated to choose my life vocation. I chose the sisters who
had taught me, School Sisters of Notre Dame, and entered the community
on August 28, 1956.” At her reception into the novitiate on July 16, 1957, she
was given the name Sister M. Rae Ann, a combination of her parents’ names.
She later returned to her baptismal name. Following profession in 1958, she
continued her college education and spent the second semester as a student
teacher at Holy Rosary in North Mankato, Minnesota.

In August 1959, Sister Sylvia received her first teaching assignment: intermediate
grades at St. Michael School, Prior Lake, Minnesota, where she remained
until 1965. She continued her teaching ministry at St. Matthias, Hampton,
Minnesota (1965-67); Guardian Angel, Colton, Washington (1967-70);
St. Bartholomew, Wayzata, Minnesota (1970-71); and St. Anne, Wabasso,
Minnesota (1971-74). From 1974 through 1978, she served as religious
education coordinator at St. Mary’s Parish, Worthington, Minnesota. She
earned a B.A. in elementary education in 1968 from Mount Mary College (now
University), Milwaukee, and an M.E. in religious education from Fort Wright
College, Spokane, Washington, in 1973.

Sister Sylvia described her next ministry as, “My call to Africa began with
the call of the Church in the 1960s for religious communities to send 10% of
their active personnel to assist Third World developing countries. . . .When
our (former) Mankato Province was invited to teach at the Upgrading Centre
in Kisii, Kenya, I began to look at this call in my own heart.” She joined the
province missionary support group and spent the summer of 1976 at the
Rio Bravo mission in Guatemala, where she experienced another culture and
participated in missionary activities. She continued, “Realizing that I was not so
adept in learning Spanish, I decided to offer myself to go to Kenya, an English
speaking country. When my commitment to Worthington [Minnesota] ended
in 1978, I received a call from our provincial council to go to Kenya.” She had
participated for two summers in a missionary preparation program prior to this
new experience and felt ready, at the age of 39, to answer the call to mission.

In late August 1978, Sisters Sylvia and Carola Redig from Milwaukee, arrived in
Nairobi, Kenya. Before beginning a study of the Kiswahili language, they were
able to visit the various locations where SSND were ministering. In December,
she moved to Nyaburu, a mission compound with several schools near Kisii,
Kenya. Sister Sylvia began teaching in St. Francis Upgrading Centre, which
was founded to help Kenyan sisters get a basic education to enable them to be
further trained for ministry in parishes, schools and health care facilities.

Sister Sylvia remained in Kenya until 1983, when she returned to the United
States following a five-month sabbatical in the Holy Land and participation in
the SSND Rome Renewal program. Back in Minnesota, she was the religious
education coordinator for St. Ann Parish, Janesville, until 1987, and then served
as Community Leader for three years at Our Lady of Good Counsel, Mankato,
Minnesota. In 1990, she was asked to return to Africa and help open the new
African novitiate in Sunyani, Ghana. She lived in community with two other
professed sisters and five novices and also worked in the diocesan religious
education office. In January 1995, she became the postulant director in Kisumu,
Kenya. In 1996, the sisters in Africa became a district in the congregation. Each
country chose an area leader who would form the district council. Sister Sylvia
became the area leader for Kenya, while continuing as postulant director.

In Sister Sylvia’s words, “After 11 years in our formation community and seven
years as part of our leadership council for Africa, I felt a call to ‘come apart
and rest awhile.’” From September 2004 until July 2005, she spent time with
her family and friends and participated in a House of Prayer program in Texas.
Responding to a new need in Africa, she returned in the summer of 2005, this
time to parish ministry in The Gambia. In August 2007, she was elected to the
district leadership council and moved to Accra, Ghana. Following the formation
of the Province of Africa in 2011, she moved to Nigeria, where she served as
director of temporary professed sisters. When she celebrated her 75th birthday
in 2013, she knew that it was time to return to Mankato, Minnesota, and she
became a member of the Central Pacific Province in July 2014. She reflected on
her ministry in Africa: “In my heart I knew that I had touched the hearts and
lives of so many of our sisters, novices and postulants across Africa, as well
as the people I loved and knew in Kenya, Ghana, The Gambia and Nigeria.
We had journeyed together to become one heart and mind in the Province of
Africa. I will forever treasure their companionship on the journey.”

Living at Our Lady of Good Counsel in Mankato, Minnesota, she volunteered
with the Simon Ministry at St. John the Baptist Parish, joined the SSND Earth
Committee and the diocesan Social Concerns Committee. She also became a
lector and Eucharistic minister, and provided assistance in several areas on the
Hill. She was grateful for the proximity of her family and enjoyed being with
them.

The Memorial Mass for Sister Sylvia, with Father Eugene Stenzel as presider,
was scheduled to be held on March 16, in Good Counsel Chapel, Mankato, but
was postponed. Sister Sylvia requested a green burial and was buried in Good
Counsel Cemetery the morning following her death. She is survived by her
sister-in-law, Ginger; nephews and their families; and her sisters in community,
the School Sisters of Notre Dame and SSND associates. She was preceded in
death by her parents, Ray and Anna (Hutterer) Borgmeier, and her brother,
John.

(School Sisters of Notre Dame, Central Pacific Province)

Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord!