Cassilda Anna Weber was born the tenth of sixteen children, six boys and ten girls, to Frank and Elizabeth (Wappelfort) Weber, on October 18, 1907, at Blass Station, Missouri. This was a small railroad station along the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad. Three boys and three girls died in infancy, but, as Sr. Mary Gabriel wrote later, “the ten of us grew up to be a healthy, happy family in the fresh air of the farm on which we lived.”

The nearest Catholic school was in St. Charles, and to make it possible for farm children to attend, the School Sisters of Notre Dame took in the girls as weekly boarders. For three years, Cassilda boarded with the sisters, going home on Friday evenings and returning to school on Sunday mornings, when her parents went to town to attend Mass. After that, she was able to ride to school on a bus that had been started. Very few of the farm children graduated from eighth grade, and Cassilda’s formal schooling ended after the sixth grade. She remained at home to help her mother, but enjoyed the outside work, and helped with the milking and the gardening. At times she helped her father and brother in the field, and she loved to be around the horses and mules. After her mothers’s sudden death, she and two of her younger sisters kept house for her father and the two brothers who were still living at home.

Cassilda first learned about Clyde through Tabernacle and Purgatory. She wrote, “I didn't think I would be able to enter a teaching order because I only went through six grades at school. It didn’t seem you needed an education to do this. ” She hesitated to tell her father that she would like to enter the convent, but when she finally did, he told her, “That's the best thing you can do." On June 27, 1932, with her father, brother, and two sisters accompanied her to Clyde.

In the postulancy and novitiate, Cassilda worked in the Correspondence Department, and later helped with the milking. She was helping with the milking the evening that the barn burned at Clyde. She wrote, “That evening the cows were all excited too because they sensed something was wrong. We tried to milk them out in the yard... by the time you thought you were settled to milk one, along would come another, and then you couldn’t find the one you started with, they looked so much alike. ” Although used to milking at home, she remembered the darkness and the mud.

Cassilda made her first monastic profession on April 18, 1934, receiving the name of Sr. Mary Gabriel. A few months later, she contracted tuberculosis and was in the infirmary for six months. When our Tucson monastery was opened in 1935, Sr. M. Gabriel was among the first group of twenty to go. Although she was supposed to go for six months, she remained there for three years. During most of that time she worked in the altar bread department. She also served as portress and sacristan, both at the same time. She returned to Clyde to prepare for final profession, which she made on April 22, 1939, and a few days later she returned to Tucson, remaining there until 1962.

Over the years, Sr. M. Gabriel also served at our monasteries in San Diego and Kansas City, mostly in the altar bread department, but also doing a variety of tasks. Satisfied wherever she was, she wrote, “No matter where you go you take yourself along, that’s the biggest problem.”

Sr. M. Gabriel is fondly remembered for her common sense, a hearty chuckle, and devotion to her large relationship. For a surprise ninetieth birthday celebration held at the parish hall in St. Charles, MO, over two hundred relatives came. She had an address book in which she numbered all her relatives and listed their birthdays.

In her later years, Sr. M. Gabriel was a vital and alert presence in St. Benedict’s Health Care Center. Death came unexpectedly and quickly just a couple of days after being taken to the hospital. Several sisters were with her in her final moments, singing the Suscipe, and the refrain, Jesus Gentle Shepherd and Living Bread. Sr. M. Gabriel passed into eternity on June 12, 1999, loved just as she had loved.