School Sister of St. Francis Leta Heese led archdiocesan schools

School Sister of St. Francis Leta Heese (formerly Sister Alexandra) served for more than 70 years in Wisconsin, Iowa and Nebraska, including seven years at the helm of Omaha archdiocese schools.

Sister Leta died July 31 in Milwaukee. She was 94.

A private funeral liturgy was held Aug. 5 at the St. Joseph Convent Chapel with burial at Mount Olivet Cemetery, both in Milwaukee.

Sister Leta was born in 1926, in Earling, Iowa, and entered the School Sisters of St. Francis in 1945. She professed first vows in 1947 and perpetual vows in 1953.

She was supervisor of Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Omaha from 1962 to 1969, and from 1964 to 1969 also served on the provincial team for her congregation’s Our Lady of the Angels Province in Omaha.

Sister Leta was the province’s coordinator of communications from 1981 to 1987 and went on to teach at St. Boniface School in Elgin from 1991 to 2002. She served in pastoral ministry at St. Boniface Parish from 1997 to 2012.

She worked in prayer ministry at New Cassel Retirement Center in Omaha in 2012, before moving to Milwaukee in 2013.

Sister Leta is survived by a brother, Vince Heese of Earling; many nieces and nephews and the School Sisters of St. Francis community.