SISTER ELIZABETH HERAUF

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SISTER ELIZABETH HERAUF, S.G.M. 1919 - 2010 Sister Elizabeth Herauf passed away suddenly at home Wednesday, June 18, 2010. She was 91 years old and had recently celebrated her 70th anniversary as a Grey Nun. Born in Balgonie, Saskatchewan on April 20, 1919 to Michael Herauf who had immigrated from Russia and Odelia Obrigewitsch from Canada, Elizabeth was the fifth child in a family of five boys and four girls. She attended a one-room classroom for elementary and junior high, then completed high school away from home in a boarding school. Her upbringing was firm but just and attending church services on Sunday and other days of obligations was sacred. Sunday was a very special day for all the family. No sooner had she finished school that she entered the Grey Nun novitiate in St. Boniface, Manitoba. Both language and customs were foreign to her but she nonetheless persevered and became a prayerful woman, faithful to the lifestyle she had embraced - and this for 70 years! Sister Elizabeth had a very fascinating teaching career in Lebret, Saskatchewan, Fort Francis, Ontario, St. Norbert and St. Boniface Diocesan High School and Sandy Bay in Manitoba, and Chesterfield Inlet in the N.W.T. She wrote I enjoyed every minute of my teaching career. After her formal teaching Sister Elizabeth was ready for another challenge. Loving adventure, she volunteered as a pastoral worker first in St. Boniface General Hospital and then in Health Sciences Centre. After 20 years, or 11,400 volunteer hours at Health Sciences Centre, Sister received the Volunteer Leaders in Service Excellence Award and a letter of appreciation, thanking her for her dedication and quality of services to the patients. As a faithful daughter of St. Marguerite d'Youville, Sister Elizabeth enjoyed her work with the needy and the suffering members of Christ which brought her closer to her God of love and compassion. Sister Elizabeth was a woman of prayer. In a beautiful prayer-poem written in 1999 and entitled Prayer on My Death Bed she writes: Come, Lord Jesus, and lead me home to our Father and Your Father. I need you, Jesus, I trust You for You are my Lord and Saviour. I love You, and abandon myself into your guiding Light. Lead Kindly, Light. I surrender myself into your hand. My hope and my Salvation! Sister was an intellectual and an avid reader of novels, of scholarly books but especially of religious books in which she found food to nurture her spiritual life. We will miss you, Liz, but we hope you are now experiencing the warmth and the brightness of God you so loved and fervently served. A wake for Sister Herauf will be held Tuesday, June 22 at 7:00 p.m. at Despins Residence, 151 Despins Street. The Funeral Mass will be held at the same location Wednesday, June 23 at 1:30 p.m. Cremation to follow. DESJARDINS 233-4949 1-888-233-4949

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As published in Winnipeg Free Press on Jun 22, 2010