Obituary: Sister Catherine Margaret Carden, 93

Sister Catherine Margaret Carden passed away on July 25 at Maryknoll Sisters Residential Care IV in Ossining at age 93.

Carden, who was a Maryknoll Sister for 73 years, was born on March 27, 1920, in Carbondale, PA, to Marcus A. and Gertrude Corrigan Carden.

Carden’s first mission as a sister was to serve in Hawaii, where she was eventually asked to start the first Confraternity of Christian Doctrine for the Diocese of Honolulu. Carden, whose religious names is Sister Marcus Marie, was then sent to California to train Christian teachers in San Joaquin County.

“Carrying brown bag lunches, portable chalkboards and other teaching aids, [Sister Catherine, along with other Maryknoll Sisters stationed in Stockton] took the Gospel message to children they gathered in churches, auditoriums, pump houses, living rooms, basements and storerooms,” wrote Sister Elizabeth Roach, MM, in a press release issued in 1989. 

“That’s where I found my love for Hispanic peoples,” said Carden, according to her obituary.

Carden pastoral work then took her to Peru, then Mexico where she opened the first Catholic convent in Cuernavaca. She later served as the program and personnel director of the Centro Intercultural de Documentacion. She later served as the executive secretary of the Catechetical Institute in Manizales. 

She came back to America in 1971 to help West Haverstraw schools develop an English as a second language program for the district.

In 1971, while on leave in the United States, Sister Catherine responded to a plea from a public school official in West Haverstraw, NY, to develop an English as a Second Language program for his school district.

“In my professional career that spans more than 30 years, I have not worked with a better teacher than Catherine Carden,” wrote her supervisor Superintendent of Schools Dr. A. Glen Everhartdt, in a recommendation. 

“She is simply great with the children.  She knows her subject. She has all of the essential pedagogical skills refined to the highest level. She makes allowances for individual differences. She is enthusiastic, and her pupils love her and do their very best for her. I wish that she could go on forever in North Rockland.”

After her retirement, she continued to minister West Haverstraw residents and volunteered at People to People, an organization for the hungry and homeless. She lived in Nyack then at the Maryknoll Sisters Center in Ossining in 2004. 

A Vesper service will be held for her Tuesday, July 30, at 4:00 p.m., followed by a mass of Christian burial at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, July 31. Both will be held in the Annunciation Chapel at the Maryknoll Sisters Center in Ossining. Burial will be in the Maryknoll Sisters cemetery at Maryknoll, NY.

• This obituary is from the Dorsey Funeral Home, 14 Emwilton Pl. in Ossining (914) 941-0167.