8 Wisconsin sisters

A group of 8 Catholic sisters, all of them in their 90s and living in the same convent, died this month of coronavirus, top from left: Sister Cynthia Borman, Sister Joan Emily Kaul, Sister Lillia Langreck, Sister Michael Marie Laux. Bottom from left: Sister Mary Elva Wiesner, Sister Dorothy MacIntyre, Sister Mary Alexis Portz, Sister Rose M. Feess. They were educators, music teachers and community activists who served tirelessly for those living in poverty. They all died at a Wisconsin retirement home this month, a gut-wrenching loss that highlighted the risks of infection in communal residences, even as administrators said they took precautions against infection. The deaths took place at Notre Dame of Elm Grove, about eight miles west of Milwaukee, in Waukesha County. Like most of the United States, Wisconsin is struggling to contain the spread of the coronavirus, and it has recorded at least 482,443 cases and 4,566 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. There have been 34,176 cases in Waukesha. The home was converted into a residence for elderly and sick sisters on a site historically used as an orphanage for children in the area in 1859. The first of the eight women died on December 9, and the others in the days that followed, through last Tuesday. The deaths at the residence reflected losses at similar facilities. At the Convent of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in Livonia, Michigan, 12 Felician sisters died in April and May, followed by a 13th sister in June, of Covid-19. In Wisconsin, at least five sisters at Our Lady of the Angels Convent, in a suburb of Milwaukee, died, starting in April. All five nuns were discovered to have the virus only after their deaths.