Sister Ellen Hare | Missionary, 102

Sister Ellen Hare, 102, a missionary in Africa for 30 years, died Monday, June 7, at Holy Child Center in Rosemont.

Sister Ellen graduated from Holy Child School in Suffern, N.Y. She entered the convent of the Sisters of the Holy Child in Rosemont in 1925. For many years, she was known as Mother Mary Damien.

Sister Ellen taught in Catholic schools in Wyoming, Oregon, New York and Philadelphia before being assigned to teach in a Holy Child school in Nigeria in 1935.

For the next three decades, Sister Ellen helped train young African women to be teachers and supervised primary schools in Nigeria. She also became an adviser to the Handmaids of the Holy Child, a religious order. In 1967, she returned to the United States when civil war broke out in Nigeria.

Before retiring in 1984, Sister Ellen was an administrator in Holy Child convents in Rye, N.Y.; Summit, N.J.; and Rosemont.

She is survived by a sister, Sister Julia Hare, also a Sister of the Holy Child; a niece; and several nephews.

A Funeral Mass will be at 11 a.m. Saturday, June 12, at New Sharon Chapel, 1341 Montgomery Ave., Rosemont. Friends may call at 10 a.m. Burial will be in Calvary Cemetery, West Conshohocken.