Sister Mary Susan Huppe was born Susan Ann on October 23, 1937, in Kansas City, Missouri, to Juanita and Frank Huppe, joining a brother, Frank, who was three years her senior. Her parents were divorced when Susan was four or five years old, and her father died when she was ten. Susan was always very close to her brother. She left instructions for her death notice: “Tell the whole world that my brother, Frank, is the best brother on planet earth!”  

Sister Susan said of her childhood, “I did the usual things girls do when growing  up— slumber parties, come-as-you-are parties, square dancing, ice skating, softball and volleyball, boating, sleigh riding, and taking in the latest movies.” When Susan was fourteen years old, she attended a boarding school, Ursuline Academy in Paola, Kansas. Her only paid job before entering the monastery was babysitting. 

Sister Susan learned about our Congregation from her father and from her great-aunts: Mother Mary Dolorosa and Sisters Mary Hildelita, Laurentia, and Justina. She had happy memories of visits to Clyde before her parents were divorced. She remembered the bells, the old guest house, the wagon they rode to the chicken houses, and feeding the fish with altar bread scraps.

Sister Susan felt called to our Congregation because she did not want to teach or nurse. She felt drawn to a quiet, simple life of prayer and work. The vocation call came when she was fourteen years old and a student at a boarding school in Paola, Kansas. She had hoped to get married and have twelve children, but one night she had an experience of being “zapped” by God. She wrote, “I felt God’s deep love for me in a very tangible way and I felt called to return His love by giving myself completely to Him.” She found out later that it was the Feast of Saint Benedict, and the sisters were praying the prayer for vocations during Vocation Week. 

Initially, Susan’s intention was to enter the monastery after her high school graduation, but by October of that year she had hopes of entering in three months. Susan and her mother wrote letters to her aunts. Her mother gave Susan permission to enter. Amid tears of sorrow and joy, Susan’s brother drove her and their mother to Clyde, where they spent a few days together before saying “goodbye.”

Susan entered as an aspirant on February 10, 1953, the Feast of Saint Scholastica. After prayers and much pleading, she was permitted to become a postulant on January 3, 1954. Sister Susan made her firsts vows on November 9, 1956, receiving the name Sister Mary Teresina. She recalled that date as “the happiest day of my life. She made her final vows on February 24, 1962. She completed the requirements for her high school diploma in 1969 and attended the Institute of Religious Formation at Saint Louis University in 1978.

During her years in community, Sister Susan served at the monasteries in Clyde; Tucson, Arizona; Kansas City and Saint Louis, Missouri; Mundelein, Illinois; and San Diego, California. She worked in the correspondence department, the kitchen, the sacristy, sewing, in altar bread production, and as portress. She served as vocation director, postulant director, novice director, and as sub-prioress.

Sister Susan described herself as enjoying the ocean, the mountains, Disneyland, laughing and sharing with friends, reading, singing, and dancing, ice skating, and a good movie. She also enjoyed times of silence and solitude, including retreats, hermit days, and prayer in chapel or in her room. Sister Susan expressed gratitude for “the many ways in which God has been present in my life and for my vocation, family, and friends.

In failing health, Sister Susan transferred to Our Lady of Rickenbach in 2016. She continued her extensive correspondence with her many friends and family members. Death came peacefully during the night of March 6, 2023. Her brother, Frank, her sister-in-law, Patricia, and our nurse, Heather, were with her.

Sister Susan is survived by her brother, Frank, nieces and nephews, and her monastic family. Her funeral liturgy was at the Benedictine Sisters’ Adoration Chapel on March 8, 2023, with burial following in Mount Calvary Cemetery in Clyde.