Sr. Frances McCort | Missionary, 88

Sister Frances McCort, 88, a former missionary in Africa, died of heart failure Monday at Holy Child Center, a retirement residence for the Sisters of the Holy Child in Rosemont.

Sister Frances entered the convent after graduating from West Catholic High School. For years she was known by her religious name, Mother Philip Neri.

She taught at St. James School in Philadelphia and in Portland, Ore. In 1955 she was assigned to Nigeria, fulfilling "a dream I had all my life," she said in an article published in her order's magazine, Action, in 2005.

Sister Frances was forced to leave Nigeria during the Biafran war in 1968. She was reassigned to Ghana. In the late 1970s she returned to Nigeria. In the 2005 article, she said that although her main work in Africa was training teachers, "By the grace of God, on my journeys, I was able to baptize several babies and a few adults." When she visited tuberculosis and leper patients who lived alone, she said, "I saw the face of Jesus in his passion."

After leaving Africa in 1982, Sister Frances took a sabbatical in Rome and then was a school secretary in New York City for seven years. For three years she tutored and kept records at St. Edward School in North Philadelphia. Before retiring in 1994, she spent a year in New York at the Dalton Center, the support organization for her order's missions.

Sister Francis earned bachelor's and master's degrees in education from Villanova University.

She is survived by nieces and nephews.

A Funeral Mass will be said at 11 a.m. today at New Sharon Chapel, 1341 Montgomery Ave., Rosemont. Friends may call from 10 a.m. Burial will be in Calvary Cemetery, West Conshohocken.