Sister Carolyn Hupperts, CSJ
October 23, 1937 - June 26, 2023
Adventurous, sense of humor, desire to serve
On October 23, 1937, a daughter was born
to Frank and Ida (Feldman) Hupperts of East
St. Louis, Illinois. Her parents named her Mary Josephine, after her two grandmothers. She grew up with three sisters and one brother. After high school, Mary Jo worked for a year and then decided to begin college classes.
Around the end of the first semester, she couldn’t put off the thought that she really wanted to be a religious. Someone suggested to her that she should join the Sisters of St. Joseph. Though she had never met or even seen a CSJ, she applied to Carondelet, entering in September of 1957.
In 1958, she received the habit and the name Sister Carolyn Francis. She earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Fontbonne College
(1962), and a master’s in remedial reading from the University of Missouri-Kansas City (1973).
S. Carolyn's first teaching ministry began in 1962 with intermediate students at St. Cecilia in Peoria, Illinois. From there, she moved to Chicago to teach junior high at Nativity of Our Lord (1964). In 1965, the position of principal and teacher at Assumption in Kansas City, Missouri, followed. Staying in Missouri, S. Carolyn became principal at St. Margaret of Scotland in St. Louis (1970). Then, in 1973, she taught at Bishop Healy until 1976 when she became principal at Holy Guardian Angels. In 1981, she decided to take a sabbatical.
I asked the community if I could just go to Belize for my sabbatical. I wanted to see if I could live in a Third World country and just how it would be as far as the difference in culture. ... I went to Belize for about two and a half months. ... I was there for St. Joseph’s Day, which was nice, and I was also there for Holy Week so I could learn the way a different culture celebrates Holy Week. It was a wonderful thing for me. Belize, of course, is very poor.
S. Carolyn began her new ministry as pastoral associate at Holy Guardian Angels in St. Louis (1982). Moving to Kansas City, she ministered as pastoral associate at Blessed Sacrament (1983). Then, in 1986, she was the youth coordinator for Catholic Covenant Community. In 1988, she began ministering in Odessa, Missouri, as a pastoral associate at St. George/St. Jude. Then, in 1992, she served at Corpus Christi/St. Lucy in St. Louis as well as directing the RCIA program.
Moving out of “church work,” S. Carolyn began to serve as a basic education teacher for the St. Louis Public Schools (1997) until 2000 when she took a position as an activities director for the Mary Ryder Home, a place for elderly women who were “homeless or abused or needed to get out of some situation.” After her retirement in 2008, she continued to volunteer at various places, often at Carondelet Community Betterment Federation. She moved to Nazareth Living Center in 2020.
By Sister Helen Oates