Nora was born Sept. 18, 1924, to John and Bridget Collins McDonagh in the village of Trienbawn, County Galway, Ireland. She was the eighth child in a family of 11. Mary, the oldest, was born in 1910, then Julia, Michael, Delia, Sara, Maragret, Willie, Nora (Sister Frances), Eileen, Annie (Sister Mary Patrick), and John, who became Father Jarlath, OFM. Margaret died in infancy, the other 10 children all graduated from Sylane National School. They were drilled in a broad range of academic subjects and had classes (open to boys, too) in knitting, sewing and embroidery. They walked to school and took their lunch, ordinarily a bottle of milk and homemade bread. Each family brought a sod of turf from home to burn in the fire during snow and icy weather. After graduation, Nora stayed at home to help on the farm. As a teenager she worked as a waitress in Guy’s hotel in Tuam and at Kinvara Hotel in Bray, County Wicklow.
In 1946, Nora returned home to respond to the call to religious life that she had felt for some time. She first visited cloistered communities but none of them seemed to be looking for new members, nor meet Nora’s need to be a missionary. A Dominican priest told her of an Ursuline community in England, a foundation from the Calvarienberg Ursulines of Germany, who needed members. She visited an Ursuline Convent in Kettering, England, where she was given a warm welcome. From July 1946 to January 1949, she was in the initial formation period, given the name Sister Frances. On January 13, 1949, she made temporary vows and three years later made vows for life. She attended a Teacher’s Training College in London earning certification for teaching.
In 1954, the Ursuline Community in Germany, for financial reasons, could not continue the Kettering foundation in England. Sister Frances and Sister Mary Patrick (Annie, who also became an Ursuline of Kettering) were sent to the United States on the French Steamer, The Liberty, to help the Ursulines of Belleville, Ill. From New York, they stopped in Cincinnati to visit a few days with family members who emigrated to the United States several years earlier.
Sister Frances’ ministry in America led her to teaching in St. Regis, East St. Louis, Ill.; getting a degree in nursing from Marillac College; serving as Diocesan Vocation Assistant; pre-novitiate formation director; getting a degree in religious education; serving in leadership of the Belleville Ursulines for several terms; teaching all grades, for 34 years, at Holy Childhood School in Mascoutah, Ill.
Sister Frances’ teaching ministry came to an abrupt end in the fall of 1996 when she had a five-bypass heart surgery and eight months later a mitral valve replacement. In celebration of her 50th jubilee in 1999, she and Sister Mary Patrick visited Ireland once more. They were especially happy to visit Canterbury where their brother, Father Jarlath OFM, had ministered and to pray at his grave in Liverpool where he was buried the previous year.
The Belleville Ursuline community merged with the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph in 2005. Sister Frances spent her last days in Saint Joseph Villa, the healthcare facility at Mount Saint Joseph. She died Nov. 22, 2011. Following the Mass of Resurrection celebrated by Rev. Robert Flannery, Sister’s remains, accompanied by family members, friends, former pupils and the Ursuline community, were carried to Mount Saint Joseph Cemetery for burial.