Pauline nun, native of Youngstown, dies at 87

Special to The Vindicator

Sister Mary Augustine, who was born Adele “Dale” Rose Nemer in Youngstown, died June 16 at the Queen of Apostles community in Boston, Massachusetts, at the age of 87, according to a message by the Daughters of St. Paul.

Sister Mary Augustine, who was a member of the Order of the Daughters of St. Paul (also known as Pauline Sisters), spent more than 30 years serving as a missionary nun in Kenya and Uganda. She was the fifth of six daughters born to Ferris and Sara Joseph Nemer in Youngstown and joined the Pauline Sisters in Derby, New York, at the age of 16 in September of 1955, according to her obituary, which was posted by her order.

She was well known in the Youngstown area because she maintained strong ties to her large family there as well as her home church — St. Maron’s Catholic Church in Youngstown. She was predeceased by her parents; her five sisters, Mary Catherine (Kitty) Clemens Rotar, Jeanette (Jeannie) Featsent, Elizabeth (Betsy) Featsent, Barbara (Bobbe) Scharrer and Theresa (Terry) Khoury. She is survived by the Sisters of the Daughters of St. Paul all over the world, as well as many nieces, nephews, and cousins, her obituary states.

Her death has prompted tributes from women religious, clergy and lay Catholics all over the world who remember her as a missionary, mentor, educator and apostle of Catholic publishing, according to her sister, Barbara Scharrer. She returned to the United States from Africa in 2019.

After completing her novitiate, she made her first profession on June 30, 1958, and later took perpetual vows in 1963. Her early years as a professed Daughter of St. Paul saw her serve in various apostolates across the United States and the Pacific, including San Antonio, Oakland, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Honolulu, Samoa and Fiji, her obituary states.

Sister Mary Augustine also developed expertise in operating printing presses, a skill that would later become central to her missionary service in Africa. A turning point came in 1984 when she was invited to join the Pauline mission in Africa. Recalling the moment in a letter to the then Superior General, Sr. Maria Cevolani, she wrote: “Something wonderful has happened… They asked me if I wanted to go to Nairobi to help operate the printing presses. I immediately said yes… it is the answer to my prayers.”

In the same letter, Sister Mary Augustine expressed her desire to dedicate herself fully to missionary work, saying, “I love my Pauline vocation; I love the apostolate in all its aspects — technical work, the book center, outreach — and I would like to share in the mission with the other sisters.”

She arrived in Nairobi in 1985 and began training young African women in printing technology while helping strengthen Paulines Publications Africa (PPA). Her mission later took her to Kampala, Uganda, where she served in the Catholic book center and vocation ministry before returning to Nairobi in 1990 to continue the technical apostolate.

In 2003, Sister Mary Augustine was appointed superior of the Kampala community.

After completing her term, she returned to Kenya and joined the editorial department, where she contributed significantly to the publication of the African Bible, one of the most important Catholic publishing projects on the continent.

Her work included copyediting and proofreading, drawing on what the Pauline Sisters described as her “excellent command of English.”

Beyond publishing, Sister Mary Augustine assisted sisters serving in Africa with immigration documentation, taught English, catechetics and the Constitutions of the Daughters of St. Paul, and played a key role in the formation of young women preparing for religious life.

The Kenyan Pauline Sister remembers learning practical publishing skills from the late American missionary, including printing, cleaning printing plates, gathering book signatures, and working in the typography department.

Two major projects that Sr. Mary Augustine completed before returning to the U.S. was the editing of the Liturgy of the Pauline Family, a prayer resource that continues to be widely used across the Paulines’ Eastern Africa, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe (EAMZZ) Province, and her outreach to inmates in Kenya’s prison system, describing it as evidence of her concern for people often overlooked by society.

She undertook the mission of establishing mini-libraries in maximum-security prisons throughout Kenya, providing 113 prisons with Bibles, spiritual books and devotional materials.