“Everybody needs to pitch in, eat whatever is served, and enjoy life.”
-Sister Marcella Marie Dreikosen
Sister Marcella Marie Dreikosen laughs a lot. Throughout the interview, she often cracked jokes and radiated good energy. She grew up in north central Wisconsin, the fifth youngest of fifteen children, thirteen of whom lived to adulthood. There were ten girls and five boys, and “the girls always won out,” said Sister Marcella Marie with a laugh. Her dad was a “fix-it” man, repairing motors, and her mother ran the household. Early on, the family lived in a small log cabin. Sister Marcella Marie laughed as she remembered how the snow often blew through the log walls in the cold winters. Her mother’s solution – make quilts to keep everyone warm. “It was an interesting life.”
Eventually, they moved to a larger town with a bigger house. But, sadly, her mother suffered a major stroke, leaving her paralyzed on the right side. Sister Marcella Marie was about eight years old. Her mother didn’t want to go to a nursing home; she wanted to stay with her kids. So, the whole family needed to pitch in to help her. Amazingly, everyone (boys and girls) needed to take turns cooking. As Sister Marcella Marie remembers, the food wasn’t always cooked to perfection, but no one complained. “We all had to clean our plates, even my dad, which surprised me.”
Tragically, her mother died two and a half years later at age 42. The family drew even closer together and continued to rely on each other. As one can imagine, Sister Marcella Marie’s family means a lot to her.
Another loss rocked the family ten years later when Sister Marcella Marie’s father died of a heart attack at age 51. By this time, Sister Marcella Marie had left home and joined the convent. Her dad must have known that something was wrong with him because he made the long trip to southern Wisconsin to visit her where she was stationed. They had a nice visit, and five days later he was dead. Sister Marcella Marie said her father would have wanted to go quickly like that, and not have to suffer for a long time like his wife did.
When asked how she coped with these heartbreaks, Sister Marcella Marie replied, “I just went on with life. That’s what Dad would have expected. That’s the kind of Dad that he was.”
When Sister Marcella Marie entered the convent, she knew what she wanted to do as her ministry. She asked to work in food service. “I was already doing food service at home, so I thought it couldn’t be too difficult.” It wasn’t, and she loved it! She ministered mostly in large institutions where she worked with others. She served in the kitchen of the motherhouse in La Crosse for thirty-one years. “I never tired of it.”
Something else that Sister Marcella Marie loves is praying as an official adorer for the community’s Perpetual Adoration ministry. At one time, she was a regular at the 3 to 5 a.m. time slot in the Adoration Chapel. Now she has a shorter time, but she is able to go to the chapel to pray at different times during the day. As she stated, “One of the best parts of living at St. Rose was that we could go to the chapel and pray any time. That got me through difficult times.”
In her free time, Sister Marcella Marie offered to pet-sit for a number of people. “I loved to take care of dogs and cats especially.” Then she laughed, “But not horses.”
Sister Marcella Marie had to slow down a number of years ago after she fell down some stairs in the middle of a dog-sitting weekend and broke her leg. She was more worried about the dogs, and not wanting to wake anyone up in the middle of the night. She laid on the floor all night while the dogs barked at her. Again with a laugh, she added, “I got scolded for that, and I deserved it.”
When asked if she had any words of wisdom for our readers, Sister Marcella Marie replied, “I’ve enjoyed my community life. I have always appreciated what we had. That’s what we were taught at home. I especially love going to the Adoration Chapel, but I also enjoy spending time with God in my room. I had to learn that when I was restricted during COVID and when I broke my leg.” And wryly, she adds, “Oh, these four walls are so beautiful.”
About Wells of Wisdom
As many more women religious in the United States are entering their 70s, 80s, and 90s, women’s communities are realizing what a wealth of wisdom there is among us. It is too rich to be ignored. So in “Wells of Wisdom," author Sister Karen Lueck features a Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration in her golden years who is willing to share some of her wisdom with a world desperately in need of it.