Sister Collette served in Omaha parish and schools

Dominican Sister of Peace Collette Marie Bauer spent much of her 69 years of religious life serving Catholic schools in Nebraska and Kentucky, including in Omaha.

Sister Collette died Jan. 5 at age 93 at Sansbury Care Center in Catharine, Kentucky.

A remembrance service will be held Jan. 11 and a memorial Mass Jan. 12 at the care center chapel. Since she chose to donate her body to science, a burial in her order’s motherhouse cemetery in St. Catharine will take place at a later date.

A native of Spalding, Nebraska, she entered religious life in 1950, professing first vows in 1952 and perpetual vows in 1955.

Sister Collette earned a bachelor’s degree in English/education from Siena College in Memphis, Tennessee, and master’s degrees in higher education and art from Morehead State University in Morehead, Kentucky.

In addition to serving at schools in Kentucky and McCook and Grand Island, Nebraska, she taught at St. Philip Neri School in Omaha from 1966 to 1967. She also was a secretary at Holy Ghost Parish from 1978 to 1979, and from 1979 to 1980 was a librarian at the former St. Joseph School, both in Omaha.

Upon retirement in 1998, she moved to the Sansbury Care Center, where she began a ministry of prayer and presence.