Agnes Josephine Grosspitch was born on March 13, 1893 at Belleville, IL. She was the only daughter and first of three children born to Joseph and Hattie Vetter Grosspitch. She once wrote, "My birth brought much sorrow to my dear Mama, for God saw fit to give me only one hand and an arm about two inches below the elbow. 'My God, my God, why did you do this?' Mama cried out when she first saw me, but as my Papa told me, he consoled her with 'Gottes Will'. That was dear Papa's outstanding virtue." Her father was a tailor and her mother was a seamstress until she mar­ried. She often told the sisters of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair that the family had attended. They took a horse-drawn street car from Belleville to St. Louis. She remembered vividly the cotton candy and ice water that was sold there.

Agnes Josephine went to St. Luke's Catholic school as a child and had many artistic abilities. She took a correspondence course in pen and ink in 1907. At Notre Dame convent near her home she also took an oil painting course. After she entered the community she used these skills to make enrollments and do other kinds of art work. All of this was done with her left hand. She once wrote, "it may seem very strange when I say that until I was ten or twelve I didn't realize what it meant, 'I was born that way,' when people would ask what happened to my arm. I mean, I just was not conscious of the fact that I had only one hand. God was so good as to hide the reality from me. Mama never referred to my handicap. She never pitied me, always let me do any work, never let on to me so as to make me feel that I had only one hand. I remember that on Saturdays I would try baking cake. When I chose a rec­ipe she would say, 'oh this takes too many eggs, try this one.' When the baking was finished she would say, 'I'll take it out of the oven, I can do it better', and yet I didn't catch on, that I just could not have taken the cake pan out of the oven and turned it over."

In January 1906, Srs. M.Bernard Willman and Bona­venture Eikelmann, two Benedictine Sisters from Clyde, MO came to Belleville on a collecting tour. The grade school teacher chose a seventh grader, Agnes, to take them around the area. The teacher told the girl that the sisters were praying sisters and never left the Blessed Sacrament alone, night or day. Agnes Josephine was deeply touched by this experience. That May she received her first Holy Communion. She wrote, "it was on this solemn occas­ion I began what I would vow to do in 1912, the conversion of my life.”

Agnes Josephine attended High School and became a member of the Young Ladies Sodality. The group had a library and the books Agnes read from there had a great influence on her life, especially those by Father Faber. She wrote, "I began to be too pious to suit my mother's tastes. Then I remembered those praying Sisters and got their address from the girl who had been around with them in the country around Belleville. I wrote but didn't tell Mama of my desire to be a sister, to go to the convent, so when a favorable answer came to my letter, I first told Papa. He was quite happy, but poor Mama - it broke her heart and she cried and cried for two weeks. Mother Mary John had asked me to come the 24th of August, so there was little time for preparations. I was told to bring the clothes I had - no list of what to bring was given me, but my Mama came to Clyde about two weeks later to sew what I needed.

"It was the evening of August 24, 1909 that I enter­ed as a postulant. As soon as school reopened in the Acad­emy in September, I was a pupil in it. As I had to pre­pare for teacher's examination both in March and June I was not invested with the habit until August 27, 1910. As soon as school opened in September, I began teaching at the Academy some subjects in the lower grades, and kept on studying for more teacher's exams and trying above all to be a good novice. After the examination that spring, my health began to fail. The doctor ordered a change, no responsibilities, and so I returned in secular clothes to my home the last day of August. I was home for five months. I was happy to be back and clothed again as a Novice on January 30, 1912. On August 24, 1912 I made my first vows. My Papa came for the occasion. I also received, before the retreat, my first artificial arm and hand made of willow wood. I received the name Sr. Mary Pancratia. (Sister returned to her baptismal name on Holy Saturday 1968).

"When school opened in September I went to teach at the public school called Wild Cat. We had a buggy, usually drawn by an old horse, but when the snowdrifts were too high we walked across the fields, I carrying our dinner buck­et and Sister M. Maura the book satchel. The next Septem­ber I was transferred to teach at the school adjacent to the Orphanage operated by our sisters. After teaching two years and passing another teacher's examination, the assign­ment was to Clyde school. For a good many years I taught at the Academy.

"I made Perpetual Vows on August 24, 1918. It was truly a day of great graces, under the influence of which I lived for several years. Each year I have tried to keep this threefold anniversary day, August 24, in a sort of retreat day. In 1935 I was transferred to our convent in Mundelein, Illinois, where I spent twenty-three happy years. I was portress, refectorian, and worked mostly in the art dept."

When Sister was transferred to St. Louis in 1973 she acquired the job of bell-ringer which she kept until 1981. She became a resident of St. Benedict's Health Center in May 1980, when she broke the stump of her right arm. Until two months before her death she had spiritual reading for five or six sisters on the first floor Health Center. She also visited regularly those who were bedfast and prayed with them. Her presence and gift of self to others is the gift she has left to us. For years sister got up during the night for an hour of prayer. This was her practice until very recently. She once wrote, "My greatest joy has always been to get up at night to pray, and Mother M. Dolorosa often gave me permission."

Sister hoped to live until her 75th anniversary of pro­fession, August 24, 1987 but this was not to be. On April 16, just after 1:00 a.m. Sister Agnes Josephine Grosspitch, the oldest professed sister of our Congregation, died in her sleep. She died as she had lived, quietly. The Mass of Resurrection was held in the chapel of our St. Louis Monastery on April 17.