Sr. Mary Guadalupe OP, Dominican Mission Sisters Papers

Sister Mary Guadalupe, OP started her religious journey with the Dominican Mission Sisters when she was 39. Born Marjorie Bollweg, she worked in Houston and obtained a Certified Professional Secretary certificate at the University of Houston in 1956. After meeting a Dominican priest in Houston, she began actively volunteering at her church and decided to permanently join the convent soon after. Sr. Guadalupe moved to Chicago and joined the Dominican Mission Sisters on October 11, 1959.

The Dominican Missions Sisters was founded in 1955 in Chicago. The purpose of the Dominican Mission Sisters was to provide services of the Church in foreign and domestic areas. Since admittance into the Dominican Sisters was open to any Catholic woman between 18 to 40 and to widows with specific requirements, Sr. Guadalupe was eligible. The Sisters spent most of their time internationally in places like Chile, Ecuador, and Peru. Sr. Guadalupe was sent to perform missionary work in Trujillo, Peru and arrived on October 26, 1961, at the Escuela Santa Maria, a boys school. Sr. Mary Guadalupe taught them English, discipline, and religious classes. She also travelled to a convent in Quito, Ecuador and was a religious teacher at the Hacienda Casa Grande, Peru, a large sugar plantation near Trujillo. A short memoir by Sister Anton Plass, OP is included in the collection, chronicling her time at the Hacienda Casa Grande from 1963 to 1965. The community in Peru was disbanded in 1967 by order of Cardinal Cody due to lack of personnel and money. Following the dissolution, Sr. Guadalupe, OP stayed with the Kenosha Dominicans one and a half years, then transferred to the Houston Dominicans in September of 1968.