Regina Anna was born in Chicago, Ill., on July 18, 1898. Her mother was born in Germany and came to Chicago as a small child. Her father John Churan was born in Chicago. Her mother had wanted to go to the Franciscan Order, but her father who was not a Catholic was against it. So when her first child Regina Anna was born, she offered her the Lord saying that since she could not be a nun, she was offering first child to Him. Sr. M. Loyola said later that she had occasion to remind her mother of those words when she told her she was going to Clyde. Sr. M. Loyola had two younger sisters, Helen and Antoinette and two brothers, Paul and Joseph.
Sr. M. Loyola said she wanted to be a Sister as far back as could remember. She wanted to go to the convent right from school but they were poor and she was needed to help her mother educate the younger ones. So she went to business school, and worked in Chicago for 5 years, until the family moved to California.
In California, when meditating at the ocean and mountains, God spoke to her heart. Her dear mother was beside herself in having daughter leave her and kept saying, "What will we do without you?” It was then that she reminded her of her offer to God at her birth. When her mother visited at Clyde later, she was very happy and told her never to leave that holy place.
She entered in October 1931, was invested in June 1932, and made Profession on August 26, 1933. She went to work in the Correspondence Department and answered letters for many years, helping and consoling all who wrote for prayers. She was appointed Prioress of our Kansas City convent in 1951 with Sr. M. Albertina as her assistant. Later she was transferred to San Diego and helped with the First Communion Veil work. This assignment was followed with a return to Clyde where she again spent many years answering letters in the Correspondence Dept. and made many good friends. Poor health brought Sister to the St. Louis Health Care Center in 1978, where she remained until her death on January 1, 1985.
Sr. M. Loyola’s Funeral Liturgy was celebrated by our chaplain, Fr. William Doyle, S.J., who preached at length on the virtues of Patron St. Ignatius Loyola, the Founder of the Jesuit Order. Fr. spoke of how Sr. M. Loyola had admired and imitated her Patron, and of how she had spent her old age in kindness and sweetness. Her burial at Clyde was on January 4.