Sister M. Patricia Klosinski, OSF

EAST PEORIA — A funeral Mass will be celebrated for Sister M. Patricia Klosinski, OSF, at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, June 13, at the Motherhouse of The Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis, 1175 St. Francis Lane. Burial will follow in the community’s Mater Dolorosa Cemetery.

A visitation is planned for 7 p.m. on Monday, June 12, at the Motherhouse.

Sister Patricia died there on June 8, 2023. She was 98.

Born in LaSalle on July 19, 1924, Sister Patricia was the daughter of Joseph and Charlotte Klosinski. She entered the Franciscan community from St. Bernard Parish in Peoria on Oct. 3, 1943.

Sister Patricia marked her 80th anniversary of religious life by renewing her vows at a Mass celebrated by Bishop Louis Tylka on May 17. At the festive meal that followed, Sister Judith Ann Duvall, OSF, major superior, thanked God for “bringing you among us” and for “all the lives you have touched with the love and the goodness of God.”

Sister Patricia earned a bachelor’s degree in medical technology from Creighton University, in Omaha, Nebraska; and a master’s degree in theology from Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana. Later she graduated from Illinois Central College as a practical nurse.

She served in medical technology at St. Francis Hospital in Burlington, Iowa, from 1950 to 1956, as well as St. Joseph-Lloyd Hospital in Menominee, Michigan. She was an instructor of theology in the novitiate for several years.

Sister Patricia volunteered for mission work in Ecuador in 1968 and would remain for 10 years. When she returned in 1979, she was appointed superior at St. James Medical Center in Pontiac. In 1988, she was elected as a council member for her community and worked as secretary general until 2006.

In the years that followed, Sister Patricia served in the library and the communication room at the Motherhouse. Most recently, she had been engaged in an apostolate of prayer and suffering for her Franciscan community.