Photo Caption: Frances M. Fabina, a member of Annunciation Parish in Eagle Township, died April 18 in Streator at the age of 109.

EAGLE TOWNSHIP — Frances M. Fabina was “a lovely woman” and “a very good Catholic,” according to her pastor.

And when she died at a private care home in Streator on April 18 at the age of 109, she was almost certainly the Diocese of Peoria’s oldest Catholic.

“She was very pious,” said Father Charles McCarthy, CSSp, pastor of Annunciation Church just west of Streator who presided at the funeral Mass there on April 21.

Father McCarthy regularly visited his senior parishioner and “she was always worried about the parish and wanted to hear the news,” he told The Catholic Post this week. On the first Friday of the month, she would hand him an envelope with her contribution to the parish.

Born March 9, 1903, in Kangley to Jacob and Mary (Hanisko) Fabina, she attended Kangley schools before leaving for Chicago in 1922 to do office work for Western Electric. She later moved to Detroit with her sister and worked at Square D for more than 30 years.

She retired in 1965 and moved back to Kangley and lived in the family home. She spent much of her retirement traveling.

Father McCarthy recalled Frances, who never married, as always healthy and happy. He last visited her the week before she died.

“She never complained of pain,” he said, until trouble with her knee last year. He said she died suddenly while having breakfast in bed.

Frances was a member of Annunciation Parish’s Altar and Rosary Society and was a former member of the Catholic Daughters of the Americas.

She was the sole survivor of her immediate family. Her sister Mary died in 2002 at the age of 101, and the rest of her four siblings lived into their 90s.