Sister Mildred was born on December 3, 1918, in her home near Garnett, Kan., and was given the name Mary Agnes Katzer. She was baptized at Holy Angels Church on January 16, 1919, and received the sacrament of confirmation there on May 15, 1930. She was the seventh child born to Joseph and Catherine Katzer. Her five brothers and four sisters were Hermon, Dorothy (Sister Genevieve), Leonard, Stephen, Walter, Josephine (Sister Imelda), Ambrose, Rita and Eunice.
She described her early years as “one big, happy, active family. We attended school at
Cedar Point District 88 in Anderson County, which was 1 mile away. We went to Holy Angels Church in Garnett 4 miles away. We prayed morning prayer, prayers before meals and evening prayer in our dining room before going to bed. We had no running water or electricity in our house. Our cooking and heating were done by wood stoves. Our drinking water came from a cistern. We had a big garden and many fruit trees, chickens, cows, pigs and horses.”
She attended vacation bible school at Holy Angels Church for several summers and was taught by the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth. She said, “They seemed to love our Lord and were very happy.” When her two sisters, Dorothy and Josephine, went to Paola to enter the Ursuline convent, she wrote, “They seemed so happy and grew in love for Jesus. I made a Ladies’ Retreat in Paola, went to see Mother Jerome and asked her if I could come to be a Sister. This I did and am glad and grateful I did so.”
She entered the Ursuline community in January of 1937 and was received into the novitiate on August 31, 1937. She made temporary profession of vows on September 30, 1938, and made her perpetual vows on August 30, 1941.
Sister Mildred was educated in several places including: Ursuline Academy and Junior College, Avila University in Kansas City, Mo., where she received her teaching degree, the college of St.
Scholastica in Atchison, Kan., the University of Dayton, the University Kansas and Emporia State University.
She taught in the following schools: Immaculate Conception in Tulsa, Okla.; St. John’s in Greeley, Kan.; Holy Name in Kansas City; Queen of the Holy Rosary in Overland Park, Kan.; St. John’s in Bartlesville, Okla.; St. Agnes in Fairway, Kan.; Holy Trinity in Paola and Holy Angels in Garnett. She also spent many summers teaching Vacation Bible School. In total, Sister Mildred taught in schools for almost 60 years and then worked in parish ministry at St. Theresa Parish in Richmond.
Sister Mildred had many hobbies, which included “fancy work and reading,” crocheting, dressing Sister dolls, writing poetry, writing stories, and making rosaries, lap robes, baptismal bonnets and ceramic pieces. At one time, she also took care of two parakeets. She had a coloring book published in 1990, “The Christ Child Visits the Farm.” The illustrations were drawn by her sister, Sister Imelda, and the poems were written by Sister Mildred. She was probably most famous for her nun dolls, which were a labor of love for her. One Ursuline doll, dressed in the traditional habit, is in the museum in Lourdes, France. There is also one in the National Shrine in Washington D.C.
Sister Mildred Katzer, 100, died May 19, 2019, in Richmond, Kan., in her 82nd year of religious life. The funeral Mass was at 10:30 a.m. in St. Teresa Church, Richmond, Kan. Burial was in the Ursuline Cemetery in Paola.