When Marie Margaret Kaemmerling entered the Benedictine Convent at Clyde, Missouri on February 16, 1911, the Sisters received Holy Communion only three times a week, according to the judgment of their chaplain, Fr. Lukas Etlin. This did not please the seventeen-year-old postulant, and she told the postulant director that if she could receive Holy Communion only three times a week, she was going home, because there she received every day. In a short while different arrangements were made to permit all the community members to approach the Table of the Lord daily.

Sister Mary Clementine, as she was known after her profession of vows made January 18, 1913, was a unique individual and followed a distinctly personal lifestyle. She was the youngest child of Cecilia Stromberg and John Kaemmerling, being born in Fussville, Wisconsin on May 26, 1894, though later her parents moved to Milwaukee. Her brother Eric became a diocesan priest. She had three sisters, one of whom died as an infant. The others were Olivia, who lived a single life, and Cordula who came to the Clyde Benedictines a year and four months after Marie Margaret, and made profession as Sister M. Wereburga. Sister M. Wereburga was still living at the time of Sr. M. Clementine's death, and had her ninety-fourth birthday one week later.

Marie Margaret attended school through the eighth grade, then took some business training, and worked in an office. During a visit to Holy Hill, Wisconsin, she felt an attraction to perpetual adoration. Familiar with the Clyde Benedictines through "Tabernacle and Purgatory", for which her grandfather obtained subscriptions, she applied here for admittance. After her profession, she taught at the district Wild Cat School southeast of the Convent for a year or two. Then she worked as a creditor in the Correspondence department.

When the time of temporary vows was completed, she made the promises of an Oblate, on August 24, 1918. This group did not take on the responsibility of Office in choir, but had their own obligatory prayers and a director in charge of their little community, or shall we say deanery, within the bigger community. They renewed vows annually on December 8. However, after Vatican II, which mandated the ending of distinctions between choir and lay Sisters, the Oblates were permitted to make perpetual vows if they chose to do so. Sr. M. Clementine declared she had made her vows perpetual when she first professed them, and did not avail herself of any further ceremony.

On July 15, 1919, Sister M. Clementine was sent to Chewelah, Washington, where a community had been started from Clyde in 1914. Here she taught in the district school and drove the car as needed. On June 9, 1922, Sister returned to Clyde. Sister had taken a correspondence course in poultry husbandry, equivalent to a four year College course, and received a diploma from the Missouri State Experiment Station, which is dated March 22, 1916, so she was well prepared for the forty years she was now to spend caring for the chickens, gathering the eggs, and supplying the convent needs, as well as the new foundation in Mundelein, and selling the surplus to help with expenses. She was very meticulous in keeping records of costs and profits.

Sister M. Clementine had some carpenter skills learned from her father, and erected the colony of small houses used in the summer for the pullets and young roosters. We could also call her Sister Fix-It, for the Sisters called on her to repair clocks, solder kitchen utensils, sharpen knives and scissors, etc. in her little shop - attached to the laundry. Another job she had was winding all the clocks in the house. She was knowledgeable in many areas and loved to read folk lore in the Farmers’ Almanac. In the long hours at the chicken yard she found companionship with her dogs Spot and Topsy, and would sometimes use her rifle to kill a hawk, rat, or squirrel. Her hobby was fishing, and when she thought the fish would bite, she would slip away to fish.

Though the work with the poultry involved long hours, Sister did not neglect prayers. She would spend the time in chapel early in the morning and late in the evening, before and after work, faithfully keeping her adoration, praying the prayers to which the Oblates were obliged, say-in the Rosary and other favorite prayers. Her favorite indulgenced ejaculation was: Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on the poor souls, have mercy on the sinners, have mercy on the dying! She took spiritual reading when convenient at her work.

Sister M. Clementine celebrated her golden Jubilee on April 22, 1963 and that fall the chickens were disposed of and the poultry operations ended. Sister became a member of St. Mary's Infirmary in Clyde. She had suffered many years from arthritis. In November 1975, the members of St. Mary's Infirmary were moved to St. Louis and a Health Care Center established there. Sister had two strokes and became incapacitated. She waited for the coming of the Lord for ten years or more as a bed patient, needing total care.

Death came at three o'clock in the morning, October 23, 1986, when Sister quietly breathed her last. Father William Doyle, SJ celebrated a Mass of the Resurrection the following day, and gave a homily. Her remains were taken to Clyde, and after another Mass on Saturday, October 25th were laid to rest in Mt. Calvary Cemetery.