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Sister M. Diane Kenel, OP
Born to earthly life: June 10, 1928
Religious profession: August 15, 1948
Entered eternal life: March 30, 2006
She brought from her storeroom
both the old and the new.
Adapted from Mt. 13, 52
Golden Jubilee, 1998
“Archives preserve the history of the present so the future can build on its past,” S. Diane Kenel
believed. She loved history, and after moving to Siena Center in 1986, she frequently expressed
interest in working with historical records. When the need arose, she happily accepted the
invitation to serve as community archivist. She managed the Archives for 13 years, until she
became too ill to do so.
“She took hold of the Archives, even amidst constant pain,”
noted S. Suzanne Noffke. “She did an excellent job of
educating herself – reading books, consulting with other
archivists, searching out periodicals. She brought a great
deal of professionalism to our Archives.”
June Loreen Kenel was born
at home on June 10, 1928, in
Detroit, Michigan, to Florence
Baby June What a smile! First Communion
Simoneau and Roy Emil Kenel. She
had two older sisters, Miriam and
Delphine, and twelve years later her
brother Gordon was born. Though
named June Loreen, her baptismal
record reversed the names, a fact not
discovered until she was preparing to
receive her First Communion. When
June’s mother contacted the pastor
about the mistake, he told her June
was not a saint’s name. Mrs. Kenel
insisted the names be corrected,
saying, “What’s to prevent her from
becoming the first Saint June?” With
that challenge, the record was
corrected!
A real pony! And a puppy!
Sister Diane later recalled the days of
her childhood during the Great Depression, with her father out of work, and her mother making
all of the children’s clothes — as well as making half of all the girls’ uniforms for Nativity High
School! Nativity would be June’s school for six years of elementary and two and a half years of
high school. (Seventh and eighth grades were spent at Saint Margaret Mary School with the
Sisters of Saint Joseph.)
It was during her sophomore year that Sister Joseph (later JoEllen) Ellen Moser suggested that
June go and talk with Mother Romana Thom during one of the latter’s visit. “I told her,” she
wrote later, “I didn’t have anything to say to her. She then told me that she had promised God
that if I would go to see Mother Romana she would pray the Stations of the Cross. I often
wonder what Mother Romana thought, especially when I said I
wasn’t interested in going to the convent.” But at the end of that
school year, Sister Joseph Ellen gave June a holy card on which she
had written, “To be or not be Dominican; you must make the
decision.” The hints continued to come from various sources, and
June began to consider seriously the possibility.
Early the next October, under some not-so-subtle pressure from
Sister Joseph Ellen, June left a note on the kitchen table asking her
parents’ permission to enter the Racine convent the following
January. They consented.
So at the age of sixteen June left home to join the Racine
Dominicans — dressed in her Nativity High School uniform so that
she could get a “clergy ticket” for the train. It was a difficult year
for her parents, because that same month her sister Miriam left to
join the Sisters of Saint Joseph, and seven months later her sister
Delphine was married. (Miriam would later return home.)
June as a postulant
June was often ill
during her
postulate year,
and the convent
physician
diagnosed her
problem as
stomach ulcers.
Mother Romana
told her the
Council had
decided she
should go home
and get some
rest, and then
come back for a
second postulate
year before
As brides before reception of the habit Visiting in the convent yard after the entering the
(June is at near-center below the steps.) Reception ceremonies novitiate. At
home that
summer,
however, her
doctor found no
ulcer. She re-
entered the
postulate that
August, and the
following
summer, on
August 4, 1946,
she received the
Dominican habit
and the name
Sister Diane of
Saint Joseph.
Hers was the last
class to be
received in the
chapel of the
Park Avenue
motherhouse.
Final profession, 1954 During the
Front: S. Lillian (Dolores) Drake, Mary Alan Zukewich, Virgine Lawinger, (hidden: Iva Marie second year of
Fitzgerald), Mary Hope Bergemann, Eunice Lang, Diane Kenel, Grace Smith; Back: S. Dolores
Chartrand, Marjorie (Mary Agnes) Connor, Christine Hillebrand, Reginald (Dorothy) Nalewajko,
her novitiate,
Irene McCarthy, Marie Bertrand (Florence) Shigo
Sister Diane began her teaching ministry (without any real formal
preparation) in the second grade at Racine’s Sacred Heart School under
the tutelage of Sister Pulcheria Weiland.
After her first profession (August 15, 1948) she was assigned at first to
Holy Angels in Milwaukee, but after a few days received a “second
appointment” to Holy Trinity School in Fowler, Michigan, where she
taught for four years. In the beginning, she wrote later, it was difficult
for this “city girl” to find herself out in the country, but by the time she
had to move on to Center Line, in 1951 she was sorry to leave. Fowler
had brought a change from second grade teaching to the middle grades,
About 1950 where she felt much more at home. She ministered at Saint Clement’s
in Center Line for the next six years, assuming some administrative
duties (in the cafeteria) for the first time.
In 1957 she was transferred from her native state to Wisconsin, where
Saint John’s in Little Chute received her service for three years in the
seventh and eighth grades.
Sister Diane was thirty-two years old when she was given her first
assignments as local superior and school principal at Saint Patrick’s in
Racine, posts she held for the next five years. Meanwhile, she was
spending her summers completing her college work at Dominican
College in Racine, and in 1962 was awarded her baccalaureate degree
in education.
1964
In the summer of 1965 Diane had the opportunity to tour parts of South
America with her mother. That fall she moved to Saints Peter and Paul
School in Green Bay, and then in 1969 accepted another principalship,
this time at Saint Clement’s Elementary School in Center Line. Her
summers were at this point being
spent at the University of Detroit,
where in 1971 she received a
master’s degree in education and
elementary school administration.
The following February Diane
accepted a position as school
consultant and personnel consultant
About 1970 for the Diocesan Department of
Education in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
She would spend the next fourteen-plus years in those
positions. One of her most rewarding experiences during this
time, she said, was taking a course and becoming certified in
the Teacher and Administrator Perceiver Interview Programs,
which helped her in the process of identifying outstanding
teachers and administrators.
In March of 1985 Diane was suddenly felled with severe back
1976
pain and spent ten days in the hospital
nursing a bulged disk. She returned to
work, but continued to be plagued with
pain. An initial month of rest was
eventually extended and culminated in
surgery that December and her
resignation from the Department of
Education the following January. The
next June she moved to Siena Center
and soon began serving as
administrative secretary there. 1987
brought a second surgery, a spinal 1980
fusion. This severely limited her
capacity for work for nearly two years, but by 1989 she was
able to serve a number of Siena Center department heads in
various secretarial roles. Then a third surgery once more A trip to the Grand Canyon, 1984
interrupted her work.
Diane had for several years offered her availability for archival work should the need ever arise.
Then, when Sister Sophia Hartl retired as community archivist in 1992, Diane volunteered to
take over that office. Already limited in her ability to travel, she nevertheless found many ways
to educate herself in archival science. One of her
goals was “to have our archives show the
importance of every sister’s ministry and not just
concentrate on the works of the administration of
the community.” She made every effort, too, to
make the archives accessible and wanted the
sisters to “own” the archives and actively
contribute to them.
The pain was relentless, however, and more
surgeries followed. But, said Diane, “if I gave in
to the pain and went to bed every time I had pain,
I would never leave my bed,” she said. Linda
Laudonio, the community’s executive secretary,
who often needed archival information for
projects she worked on for the executive team
appreciated the courage of her friend. “She would
not let her physical pain stand in the way of her
work as an archivist or as a devoted Racine
Dominican,” she reflected. “Pain did not define
her persona. I learned so much community
history from her. But more than anything else, I
learned about a gentle (sometimes feisty) woman
of faith, strength and dignity. All of us who knew
Sister Diane were indeed blessed.”
In the archives, 2002
For years, Diane spent most of her spare time on
weekends researching and writing her family
history. In that process she discovered in the
family a rare form of cancer call Waldstrom’s
Macroglobulnemia. In 1995 she learned that she
had the first signs of the disease. After yet another
spinal surgery in 2004, recovery simply did not
progress as expected. By spring of 2005, though
she still attempted to do as much archival work as
she could, Diane was forced to spend more and
more of her time in bed. That summer she was
admitted to the hospital and eventually to Lincoln
Village and then back to the hospital. By fall it was
Seventy-fifth birthday, 2003
discovered that the cancer had metastasised on her
lower spine. She moved to Lakeshore Manor in
November. Her final months were filled with
intense pain, in spite of heavy medication.
Diane died peacefully at Lakeshore Manor on Thursday afternoon, March 30, 2006. Sister Jean
Ferstl and associate Penny Sorensen were with her at the end. She was survived by her brother
Gordon (Karen) Kenel, her sisters Miriam (Ray) Pillote and Delphine (Henry) Glaeser; and
nieces and nephews.
The Mass of Christian Burial for Sister Diane was celebrated on Tuesday evening, April 4. She
was buried the following morning in the community plot at Holy Cross Cemetery in Caledonia.
— Suzanne Noffke, OP and Jean Mullooly
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