Sister Anne McIlhenny, S.H.C.J.

Sister Anne McIlhenny, S.H.C.J., who founded and ran a program to teach English as a second language at St. Elizabeth’s parish in Washington Heights, died Nov. 7 at Holy Child Center in Rosemont, Pa. She was 87. After serving as a missionary in Chile for two years, she founded the program at St. Elizabeth’s in 1970 and taught there until 1973. She then taught English as a second language in the evenings at Riverside Church in Manhattan while teaching in a public school in the Bronx during the day, 1973-1988. In 1988 she and another Holy Child sister founded a program serving migrants in Florida. Sister Anne returned to New York in 1997 and tutored students at Lehman College in the Bronx until her retirement in 1999. Born in Philadelphia, she entered the Society of the Holy Child Jesus in 1937 and professed final vows in 1945. She was a principal and teacher for many years in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Oregon and California. She held a bachelor’s degree from Rosemont College; two master’s degrees from Villanova University, in history and theology; and a master’s in English as a second language from Hunter College. She is survived by a sister, Phyllis Clifford. A Funeral Mass was celebrated Nov. 12 at New Sharon Chapel in Rosemont, with burial at Calvary Cemetery in Conshohocken, Pa.