ROCHESTER -- A funeral Mass for Sister Gildas Klinkhammer will be at 11 a.m. Monday in the Chapel of Our Lady of Lourdes, Assisi Heights, with the Rev. Dean Marek officiating. Burial will be in Calvary Cemetery.
Sister Gildas, 100, a Franciscan Sister of the Congregation of Our Lady of Lourdes, Rochester, who served in domestic and nursing care, died Thursday (Sept. 4, 2003) at Assisi Heights.
Martha Klinkhammer was born Nov. 5, 1902, in Adrian, Minn., and entered the Franciscan Congregation from St. Adrian Parish. She made profession of vows in 1925 and began her ministry at Mercy Hospital in Portsmouth, Ohio. Her other assignments were in Minnesota, Michigan and South Dakota, serving in hospitals, in an infirmary and in a college tea house. Beginning in 1931, she was a caretaker at a boarding school in Sleepy Eye, Minn., for 17 years. She completed 11 years at Tau Center and celebrated her diamond jubilee in 1985. Her final mission in 1986 was at Saint Marys Hospital, where she remained active as an Auxilian visiting patients and enjoying her retirement.
Survivors include her Franciscan Community; a brother, Leonard Klinkhammer of Rochester; and three sisters, Sister Vera, Ludwina Reining and Dolores Toomey, all of Rochester.
Friends may call at Assisi Heights beginning with the wake service at 6:30 p.m. Sunday and until time of the service Monday.
