Kaley

Sister Mary Rosalie Kaley, S.C.

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Sister Mary Rosalie Kaley, S.C., who served as an archdiocesan administrator after a 25-year teaching career, died Oct. 30 at Mary the Queen Convent in Yonkers. She was 90.

She was associate director of the Office for Parish Councils, 1989-1999; associate director of the 18th archdiocesan Synod, 1987-1989; executive secretary of the Archdiocesan Council of Women Religious, 1979-1999; associate superintendent of schools, 1977-1979; and director of the archdiocese’s Head Start program, 1965-1970.

She served with the New York City Board of Education’s nonpublic schools follow-through program, 1970-1977.

Sister Rosalie also served the Sisters of Charity in administrative roles as communications director, 1979-1987; regional coordinator, 1979-1983; and vocation director, 1964-1965. She was an early childhood consultant in Nassau, the Bahamas, in 1965.

She taught at Elizabeth Seton Academy, 1960-1962, and St. Gabriel’s, 1947-1949, both in the Bronx; at Incarnation, 1962-1964, St. Joseph Academy, 1949-1960, and Ascension, 1943-1944, all in Manhattan; at Resurrection in Rye, 1944-1947; at St. Agatha Home in Nanuet in 1939; and in Brooklyn and Southampton.

Her positions often overlapped. When she was honored at her retirement in 1999, she told CNY, “I hardly ever had a job where I didn’t have another job attached to it.” She added, “It sounds like a lot of work, but it all fit. That’s the way religious communities are.”

Born in New Rochelle, she entered the Sisters of Charity in 1937 and professed final vows in 1943. She held a bachelor’s degree in English from the College of Mount St. Vincent and a master’s degree in early childhood education from New York University.

A Funeral Mass was celebrated Nov. 3 at Mary the Queen Convent. Burial was at St. Joseph’s Cemetery in Yonkers.

Sister Mary Rosalie Kaley, S.C.