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Sister Janet McConnell, M.M., a missioner in Hawaii and South America, died Jan. 15 in the Maryknoll Sisters Residential Care unit in Ossining. She was 96. Born in Cromarty, Manitoba, Canada, she entered the Maryknoll Sisters in 1938 and made final vows in 1944 while she was serving in Hawaii. She received a bachelor’s degree from Manhattanville College in Purchase and a master’s in social service from Fordham University. She returned to Hawaii in 1955 and assisted families at a Catholic social service agency. She then served in Maryknoll’s missions in Bolivia and Peru. She first served in Lima, Peru, and then did social work among the poor in parishes in Montero and Santa Cruz, Bolivia. She was director of Maryknoll’s renewal program in Ossining for returning missionaries from 1971 to 1974. In 1980, she was assigned to the Maryknoll promotion house in San Francisco, where she did pastoral and clerical work. In 1986, she joined the Maryknoll Sisters retirement community in Monrovia, Calif. In 2001, she relocated to Maryknoll in Ossining. Her brother, John, a Maryknoll priest and renowned Scripture scholar, predeceased her. A Memorial Mass was offered on Jan. 18 in the main chapel of the Maryknoll Sisters Center.
