Marie Theresa was born in Hubbardston, Michigan, on July 8, 1921, the oldest of five children, four girls and one boy, born to Edward and Antoinette (Simon) Schueller. The family moved to Fowler, Michigan, when she was about four years old. There she attended in a one-room country school for first and second grade and then went to Holy Trinity Catholic School from the third to eighth grade. She graduated from the eighth grade on June 1, 1934. She did not attend high school, from 1934 to 1942, she helped families when there were new babies, did housework, and cared for children. From 1943 through 1944, .she worked on the assembly line for the spark plug division of General Motors in Ionia, Michigan. This was during World War II and the factories were hiring more women.

Marie Theresa had thought of entering a convent when she was 21, but was undecided as to which community. She did not want to teach school or work in a hospital. She liked to go to Holy Hours during the Forty Hours devotion and on Holy Thursday, and she felt drawn to perpetual adoration. She knew of Clyde through Tabernacle and Purgatory, as well as through her aunt, Sr. Hilda Mary, who was her mother’s second youngest sister. She wrote to one community, and when they were slow to answer, her mother suggested that she go to Clyde to visit, thinking that she might never see Sr. Hilda Mary again if she entered some other community. They made the visit together in November, 1944.

Marie Theresa waited until February, 1945, when she entered on the Feast of St. Scholastica. She was invested on September 1, 1945. As a new novice, she went to work in the veil room under sr. M. Raphael. On September 7, 946, she made her first monastic profession along with Srs. Mary Edward, Assumpta, Bemardine, and Salome. In September, 1949, she was transferred to Kansas City, where she worked in the kitchen and sewing room. In 1951, she returned to Clyde for the six months before perpetual vows, which she made on September 15, 1951.

Shortly after her final profession, Sr. M. Olivia returned to Kansas City, where she worked first in the altar bread department and then in the black sewing room. Transferred back to Clyde on the day before Christmas, 1958, she worked in the veil room until 1962. For one year, she helped Sr. M. Flora on the farm, followed by a stint in the stitching room, and then in the black sewing room. In 1967, she was transferred back to Kansas City where she worked in the black sewing room. For many years after that, she worked closely with Sr. Josephine Marie as her able assistant in maintenance. Following the closure of our Kansas City monastery, she spent two years in San Diego and then eight years in Tucson, where she worked in the Liturgical Vestment Department.

Sr. M. Olivia wrote in her autobiography, “I will always remember the fidelity to nocturnal adoration of our many older Sisters, regardless of how hard they worked during the day, never counting the sacrifice.” The many hours she spent in adoration of Christ in the Eucharist were undoubtedly the happiest moments of her life.

In 1997, Sr. M. Olivia came to St. Benedict Health Care Center in St. Louis. On April 28, 2001, she went to God suddenly, just after joking with one to the staff, shortly after noon. The sisters gathered at her bedside to pray for her. Sr. Hilda Mary, herself a member of the health care center, joined us as we bade our farewells.

The Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated in the St. Louis monastery chapel on Monday, April 30, 2001, with burial in Mt. Calvary Cemetery at Clyde the following day.