OBITUARIES: Sister Gabrielle, teacher, minister to elderly (06/16/02)

OBITUARIES

Sister Gabrielle, teacher, minister to elderly

SLOATSBURG, N.Y. - Sister Gabrielle (Catherine) Oskorip, a member of the Sisters Servants of Mary immaculate for 64 years, died on April 23.

Sister Gabrielle was born on March 22, 1914, in Olyphant, Pa., to Elias and Mary (Romaniuk), parishioners of Ss. Cyril and Methodius Church in Olyphant. This same parish fostered religious vocations to the Missionary Sisters of the Mother of God, the Order of St. Basil the Great, the Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate and diocesan as well as order priests.

Growing up in a family with two brothers and three sisters, Eugene, Peter, Ann, Mary and Mildred, Sister Gabrielle attended the local grade school and high school of Olyphant. She pursued a career as an assistant to a dentist before the choosing religious life as her lifetime goal. It was at the age of 24 that a turning point in her life came about.

Desiring to serve God, Catherine chose to enter religious life on March 22, 1938; she was to be the first postulant to enter the Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate from the United States. It was only three years earlier that the Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate had come to the United States from Canada to minister to the Ukrainian Catholic community. At this point in their history, the sisters were teaching catechism, cleaning and beautifying church sanctuaries, teaching liturgical music and holding evening school in parishes throughout the country. The tiny seed of the congregation was being planted.

Catherine traveled on her 24th birthday to St. Mary's Convent on what was then Brown Street in Philadelphia, joining the sisters as she began her journey to Mundare, Alberta, for her religious formation. This journey was to be the beginning for many young American girls who would follow Sister Gabrielle to the first active religious community for women in the Ukrainian Catholic Church, a community founded in Zhuzel, Ukraine.

Sister Gabrielle received her first vows on September 24, 1940, in Mundare, returning again on August 15, 1947, to Ancaster, Ontario, to pronounce her final vows. Upon completing her novitiate formation, Sister Gabrielle returned to the United States, educating children in Aliquippa, Chester, Keiser, Minersville and Shamokin, Pa.; Detroit, Mich., Ansonia, Conn.; Passaic, N.J.; and Buffalo and Rochester, N.Y. She also ministered to the elderly at the Home of Divine Providence in Philadelphia and for the remaining 17 years of her life at St. Joseph's Home in Sloatsburg, N.Y.

In her elder years, Sister Gabrielle carried on a personal ministry of correspondence with friends from various parishes as well as faithful pilgrims who journeyed year after year to Sloatsburg for the Holy Dormition (Assumption) Pilgrimage. As Archangel Gabriel announced the good news to Mary, Mother of God, so too Sister Gabrielle followed the example of her patron in bringing joy and the message of God's love to all whom she corresponded with.

Sister Gabrielle's one remaining sister, Mildred, nieces Mary, Anne and Dianne (with her husband Larry), and nephew Stanley (with his wife Helen) joined Sisters Servants and friends gathered at St. Mary's Villa in Sloatsburg to bid farewell.

Parastas services were celebrated in the Villa chapel by Bishop Basil Losten of Stamford. The following day, April 29, the Rev. Emil Paulshock celebrated the funeral liturgy; burial followed at the community cemetery in Sloatsburg.

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