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Sister Mary Alice Reilly, M.M., who served the Japanese community in Seattle before World War II and later during their forced relocation to internment camps, died Oct. 10 at the Maryknoll Sisters Residential Care IV. She was 100 and had been a Maryknoll Sister for 81 years.
She was assigned to Seattle in 1934. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, she watched as people she had served were shipped to internment camps and many boys she had taught were called to fight overseas.
In 1944 she joined the cloistered branch of the Maryknoll Sisters. Four years later, she returned to the active community and was assigned to Hawaii where she taught for 20 years at Maryknoll schools in Punahou, Waikiki and Kaneohe. In 1968, she was assigned to Guatemala for three years. Returning to Maryknoll in Ossining, she served in administrative capacities, 1971-1978.
She entered Maryknoll in 1928 and professed final vows in 1934. She held a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Seattle College.
A Funeral Mass was offered on Oct. 21 in the chapel of the Maryknoll Sisters Center in Ossining. Burial followed in the sisters’ cemetery.
