Issue of April 30, 2006

Peggy Roach

Human, civil rights activist

Peggy (Margaret) Roach, 78, ardent human rights supporter, died April 20, in the Waukegan home she shared with her sisters, Helen and Jane Roach. She was so closely aligned with the civil rights movement that she received one of the pens President Lyndon Johnson used to sign the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Though best known for her co-ministry with Msgr. John J. Egan, who died in 2001, Ms. Roach was involved in race relations before they began their collaboration. In 1961, she was administrative assistant at the Catholic Interracial Council of Chicago. After a move to Washington, D.C., in 1962, Ms. Roach was Social Action Secretary of the National Council of Catholic Women. In 1963, she was active in organizing the National Council on Religion and Race in Chicago. The conference was the first of its kind, bringing the formal cooperation of major faith bodies to bear on a common moral and social problem. She marched in Selma, admitting the next day that she had been “frightened to death.”

After a move to the University of Notre Dame, Ms. Roach served as executive director of the Catholic Committee on Urban Ministry, director of the Religious Leaders Program and administrative assistant to Egan at the Center for Pastoral and Social Ministry.

When Egan returned to Chicago, Ms. Roach assisted him in his roles as archdiocesan director of Human Relations and Ecumenism, and later assistant to the president of DePaul University.

An active alumna of Mundelein College, Ms. Roach was preceded in death by her sister Rosemary. She is survived by two sisters and a brother, James Roach of Atlanta. The funeral Mass was celebrated April 25 at Holy Family Parish, Waukegan. A memorial Mass was April 28 at Holy Name Cathedral.

Fr. Peter Thomas Sherry

Educator

Carmelite Father Peter Thomas Sherry, 94, the oldest member of the order in the United States, died March 28 in Peabody, Mass.

Father Sherry was born in Chicago and attended Holy Cross and St. Felicitas grammar schools. He also attended Quigley Preparatory Seminary. He entered the Carmelites at Mount Carmel Preparatory Seminary at Niagara Falls, Ontario, and made his profession of vows in 1935. He was ordained Nov. 1, 1938.

He received a bachelor’s degree in education from DePaul University in 1938 in Washington D.C. Fr. Sherry mostly served as a teacher but he also worked in parish ministry and served as a U.S. Army Chaplain. He taught at Mount Carmel High School; St. Clara’s grade school; Joliet Catholic High School in Joliet, Ill.; Mount Carmel College in Niagara Falls, Ontario; and the Carmelite Junior Seminary, in Hamilton, Mass.

Elizabeth A. (Betty) Foote

Retired teacher

A funeral Mass for Elizabeth A. Foote, 73, the former Elizabeth Glynn, was offered April 8 at St. Barnabas Church.

She is survived by her husband, Peter J., Sr., director of communications for the Archdiocese of Chicago from 1979 to 1984.

Mrs. Foote was interviewed by The New World in 1967 as a socially involved “South Side housewife and mother,” and the last white family attending St. Francis de Paula Church. She called their experience of living among African American families, “eight of the happiest years” of her life.

Thirty-five years old at the time, with five small children, Mrs. Foote spoke of her early involvement with Young Christian Workers when she was single and teaching third grade at McLaren elementary school on the West Side. YCW was also where she met her husband-to-be, Peter, equally committed to social justice. After marriage they took part in the Christian Family Movement with work in the church’s lay apostolate.

The family eventually moved to St. Barnabas Parish in Beverly, but even after her retirement from the Chicago Board of Education, Mrs. Foote volunteered as a tutor at the Aquinas Literacy Center in Chicago.

She is survived by her six children and four grandchildren; two brothers and two sisters.

Deacon Dorsey Chappell

served at st. ailbe

Deacon Dorsey Chappell died Feb. 6. He is the father of Clint Chappell, the financial reporting manager in the Controller’s Office of the Archdiocese of Chicago

Deacon Chappell, a member of the 1984 diaconate class, served St. Ailbe Parish. A funeral Mass was held Feb. 11 at St. Ailbe Church. Internment was at Holy Sepulcher Cemetery in Alsip.

Deacon James Knippen

Class of 1983

Deacon James Knippen died March 18. Born in 1931, he ministered at St. Hubert Parish in Hoffman Estates. A funeral Mass was held March 23 at St. Hubert. Deacon Knippen was the father of seven children. His wife, Antoinette, preceded him in death.

Sr. Anne Schedler

Educator, guidance counselor

Daughter of Charity Sister Anne Schedler, 75, died Feb. 21 at St. Mary’s Medical Center, Evansville, Ind. The New Orleans native entered the Daughters of Charity in 1948. She taught elementary school for several years in Missouri and Texas. In 1967, She was sent to Marillac High School Northfield, where she was the director of guidance and then principal.

In 1971, she was vocation coordinator for the East Central Province and serving as the local superior at St. Joseph Residence, Chicago, and St. Vincent Residence, Indianapolis. Sr. Anne returned to Marillac High School in 1978 as director of guidance and director of the student volunteer program. She remained there until 1985 when she was sent to St. Anthony High School, Effingham, Ill., as a guidance counselor.

Sister Anne returned to Northfield a third time; first, as guidance counselor at Marillac High School and then as counselor at Loyola Academy.

Robert Fata

St. Mary of the Lake employee

Robert Joseph Fata, 56, died March 24 in Madison, Wis. after a lengthy illness. Mr. Fata, a resident of Grayslake, was the food service director at the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary for more than 20 years.

He was a member of St. Peter’s Parish in Volo and is survived by his wife, Geralyn, his mother, Christine; his sister, Mary Ellen (John) Krusoe; and nieces and nephews.