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This Friday’s missionary hero was a wife, widow, Religious Sister, music therapist, and home missionary. Her name in religious life was Sr. Claire Marie Wick. O.S.F.
Kathryn Whitener Whitener was born on July 16, 1915 in Fredericktown, Missouri and graduated from Webster College in 1938 with a bachelor’s degree in music.
She married John H. Wick, but he died in 1942. After her husband’s death, Kathryn entered the Hospital Sisters of St. Francis (O.S.F.) in 1954 and took her vows in 1957. She took the name Claire Marie.
After her first profession of vows, Sr. Claire Marie worked at St. John’s Hospital where she pioneered a hospital music therapy program. After 7 years, she developed a similar program at Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
Sr. Claire Marie spent a summer on the Navajo Reservation in Chinle, Arizona as a music instructor after spending a year in the music department of the motherhouse. She also obtained a master’s degree in music from the University of Wisconsin.
While she was at Sacred Heart Hospital, Sr. Claire Marie founded and directed Triniteam. This non-profit was designed to help the elderly, homeless, and disabled. Eventually, she expanded the program to cover jail programs including help for recently-released prisoners. Her work as a home missionary led the Wisconsin governor to appoint her to the Wisconsin Council of Criminal Justice in 1984. A year later, the bishop of the LaCrosse, Wisconsin Diocese named her to the Justice and Peace Commission.
Sr. Claire Marie also supported clean water projects in Kenya, East Africa.
For her work, she received various awards including the Brother James Miller Justice and Peace Award and a Catholic Veterans Award. (Brother James Miller, now known as Blessed James Miller, was a Christian Brother and martyr of Guatemala. One of the houses on the Holy Cross Campus in Reitoca, F.M., Honduras is named in his honor. Blessed James Miller had the honor of being the first “missionary hero” to be featured on this blog on Friday, May 1, 2020).
Sr. Claire Marie died on June 7, 1987 at the age of 71 in Springfield, Illinois. She is buried at Crucifixion Hill Cemetery at the order’s motherhouse.
