Obituary: Sister Mary Lou Steele, SC
By: The Good Newsroom
Sister Mary Lou’s 45 years of active service were devoted to two ministry areas: education and social justice concerns
Sister Mary Lou Steele, Sister Elizabeth Maureen, was born December 21, 1925, in Manhattan, the only child of Warren and Elizabeth Smith Steele. Mary Lou attended elementary and high school in Woodstock, Vermont, and College of Mount Saint Vincent, the Bronx, earning a BA in English.
After graduation, Mary Lou worked for a year as a library assistant before entering the Sisters of Charity of New York on September 8, 1949. In 1956, she received an MA in English from Saint John’s University, Jamaica, Queens, and earned New York State Permanent Certification in English grades 7–12.
Sister Mary Lou’s 45 years of active service were devoted to two ministry areas: education and social justice concerns. Over a period of 19 years, she taught courses in English, religion, science and social studies in Cathedral High School at Holy Trinity Branch and All Saints Branch, both in Manhattan, and at Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx.
In early 1970, Sister Mary Lou followed a call to full-time ministry as an advocate for those on the margins by meeting social needs made more visible after the turbulent 1960s. At the start of the next 26 years, she directed her services to the Lt. Joseph P. Kennedy Home, the National Council of Churches, the Catholic Peace Fellowship, and Clergy and Laity Concerned. During the AIDS epidemic, Sister Mary Lou devoted 10 years at Bellevue Hospital educating about AIDS and the need to offer a compassionate response to those living with the disease. She also studied and practiced phlebotomy to aid the research of the disease.
In the early years of her retirement, Sister Mary Lou volunteered at Elizabeth Seton Women’s Center in Manhattan and was at the Convent of Mary the Queen in Yonkers. In 2013, she retired at Mary the Queen and shortly after became part of the Sisters forming community at The New Jewish Home in the Bronx. She died August 23, 2023, at New York Presbyterian Allen Hospital in the 74th year of commitment as a Sister of Charity of New York.
The Funeral Liturgy will also be Thursday, August 31, at 9:45 a.m., at Sister. Margaret of Cortona Church, 6000 Riverdale Avenue, Bronx. The funeral liturgy will livestream here.