Sister Marie Diebold

WHEATON, Ill. -- Sister Marie Diebold, age 80, breathed into the fullness of God on Saturday, Oct. 29, 2016, at the Our Lady of the Angels Motherhouse in Wheaton.

She entered the Franciscan order in 1955 and professed perpetual vows in 1963.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Leona (Heisserer) and George Diebold, and her sister Lucille Grojean.

She is survived by her sister Rita Landewee and brother, Lawrence Diebold.

Sister Marie studied at Marquette University in Milwaukee and then served in several hospital accounting offices within the Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare System. She was also a nurse's aide at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Appleton, Wisconsin.

Sister Marie moved to the Fidelity Community in Pueblo, Colorado, where she served as librarian at Holy Family School, did child care at a center and enhanced her own education, as she had done in Appleton, and Little Falls, Minnesota.

For the last 25 years of her life, Sister Marie served as a pastoral visitor. She also gave herself to office work in Denver and Milwaukee. Sister Marie was also of service off and on at Our Lady of the Angels Motherhouse as switchboard operator, receptionist and pastoral associate at Marianjoy, as she had been at St. Mary's in Racine, Wisconsin, and St. Theresa's Parish in Aurora, Illinois.

Her final move was to the Our Lady of the Angels Motherhouse in Wheaton. Her most beloved pastoral ministries throughout her life were her work at SET Ministries in Milwaukee, as a preemie nurturer at St. Joseph's Hospital in Milwaukee and as a Eucharistic minister at Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital in Wheaton.

Sister Marie played/prayed with deep enjoyment in her love of nature, in gardening, with photography, needlepoint and in and with creative arts. She wished to be remembered as "gently having a loving relationship with God, especially through nature and through the babies I've nurtured."

A prayer and wake service will be held beginning at 4 p.m. today at the Our Lady of Angels Convent, 26W171 Roosevelt Road in Wheaton.

Her Mass of Christian Burial will be at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the convent chapel. Interment will be in Assumption Cemetery in Wheaton.

Funeral information is available by phoning (630) 668-0016 or at williams-kampp.com.