Sr. Jean and Sr. Anna Remembered With Love and Gratitude At Funeral

Caption: Scenes from funeral Mass for Sr. Jean Stickney and Sr. Anna Kab Kyoung Kim at St. Bernadette Church in Evergreen Park. Watch the video.

Two nuns killed in a massive, multi-vehicle crash in Oak Lawn on Oct. 6 were remembered as good women who inspired many with their faith and acts of kindness during their funeral on Tuesday morning.

The 90-minute Mass at St. Bernadette Church in Evergreen Park for Little Company of Mary Srs. Jean Stickney and Anna Kab Kyoung Kim was simple and modest, much like the women themselves, who spent their lifetime putting God and others before themselves.

The sisters were at the head of a line of cars waiting for the traffic light to change at 95th Street and Cicero when their car was struck head on by an elderly man driving a Ford pickup truck. He, too, was killed.

Another sister in the car, Sr. Sharon Ann Walsh, remains hospitalized in stable condition.

Two silver caskets were ushered into the church by a procession of family members and Little Company of Mary sisters. A woman reached out from the pews to comfort a moist-eyed, elderly nun as the caskets passed by.

“This has been a very difficult week for all us,” Rev. James Thompson, O.S.A., said in his homily. “When I came into work last Monday I knew nothing. I met Father Gallagher who was talking excitedly about an accident. I asked him, ‘Are you telling me that Sr. Jean and Sr. Anna are dead?’”

It was time to set the shock of accident aside, Father Thompson told the gathered mourners.

“There were tears in my eyes Monday and Tuesday,” the priest said. “I couldn’t stay with the grief. It jumped over the horror of the accident. We need to set the accident aside and be with our grief.”

He told of a conversation he had with a receptionist with Little Company of Mary Hospital’s intensive care unit and shared by many in the community, of the sisters’ continued giving of themselves even in their tragic sudden deaths.

“The sisters are like martyrs,” Father Thompson said. “I met a lady who was in her car with her young children several cars back from the sisters’. She said if that truck had not impacted their car, ‘A lot more of us would be dead.’”

“It was a terrible way to die, but there were people were spared by their sacrifice,” he added.

Sr. Anna, who would have turned 49 on Oct. 8, came to live with the American sisters from Little Company of Mary’s Korean province. At Monday evening’s private wake, hospital chaplain Peg Schneider shared a story from Sr. Anna’s brother, who recalled them both watching a movie together as children in which there was a violent car crash.

“Anna said, ‘If that ever happens to me, I want God to take me and leave the mother and children safe,” Schneider said.

Both sisters spent lives of ministry overseas and were most recently missioned to Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park.

Sr. Jean was remembered as a prolific writer. When serving in the slums of Buenos Aires, she loved caring for children and the dying. The sister was in the process of writing a book when she was killed.

“She accomplished so much in her 86 years, but always under the radar,” Schneider said. “Jean was not timid but gentle, loving and respectful … we celebrate a generous woman with magnificent gifts.”

One of the hardest tasks, Schneider said, was telling the children in hospital’s Heart Connection bereavement program that their beloved Sr. Anna had died.

“She was embraced by those children,” Schneider said. “There was a little girl who was afraid of the therapy dog and Sr. Anna protected her. We told the children that Sr. Anna was hit by a car, and then we wrote a song about her.”

The funeral Mass ended with Rev. Tom Conde, of St. Christina Church, reading a letter from Cardinal Francis George, who called the sisters’ deaths a tremendous loss to the community and church in Chicago.

Then, as the hymn “How Great Thou Art” filled St. Bernadette Church, it was time to take Sr. Anna and Sr. Jean to their rest.

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