Rachel Beeson
From the funeral vigil for Sister Rachel.
We gather to celebrate the long and rich life of Sr. Rachel Beeson with family and friends from many associations during her 92 years of life.
Marietta Beeson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, on February 7, 1932, and grew up in a family of six children. Her parents, Earl and Johanna Olmstead Beeson, were married in Cedar Rapids but soon moved to Des Moines and began their family as members of Holy Trinity Parish. The children attended Holy Trinity parish school where they were taught by Sisters of Mercy. The boys attended Dowling High School and girls, St. Joseph Academy, where they were taught by BVMs. Her father died in 1946 when Marietta was only 14, so her mother was left to raise the family when the American economy was adjusting to the return of World War II veterans.
Marietta was surely exposed to the idea of vocations to religious life as part of her Catholic education. No doubt as a good student, she was encouraged by more than one of her sister-teachers. But the acquaintance with the Humilities may have come through her mother’s association with the Christ Child Home in Des Moines. Anyway, she chose them over the sisters who had taught her, which explains why WE are happily doing this HERE.
After graduating from high school, Marietta entered the Congregation of the Humility of Mary in Ottumwa, Iowa, on September 8, 1950. She received the habit the following summer and her religious name, Sister Mary Rachel. She was professed in 1953, and made final vows in 1956.
Having completed the Associate of Arts degree at Ottumwa Heights College while in the novitiate, she received an Iowa teaching certificate then. Sr. Rachel completed her BA in Education during summers at Marycrest College, graduating in 1963.
Sr. Rachel had a full and varied ministry life including all aspects of parish education. However, in 1954 she started teaching in the public schools, in the Iowa Consolidated school in Cosgrove, where the Humilities were paid $50/month. The next year she one of the three CHMs who opened the new school in Minneapolis. She was excited about it because it was “farther north that she had ever been”. They went to classes on Saturday to learn more about the diocese of St. Paul/Minneapolis. From there she was one of the three CHMs to open the new school in Oskaloosa, Iowa, in 1958. Because the convent there was not finished, the sisters lived for a time at the former naval air base outside Ottumwa, where the Ottumwa Heights community members were living while the new Heights was being built after the fire.
Sr. Rachel liked the two years at St. Anthony’s in Des Moines where she could re-connect with people she knew, followed by two years in Centerville, Iowa. In 1964, when Sr. Mildred Hamilton, who taught first and second grades at St. Vincent’s in Davenport, also became local superior as well as principal, Sr. Rachel was sent to help her. Sr. Rachel described it as a “wonderful year” where she also prepared demonstration classes for the student teachers from Marycrest College.
It was at Albia and St. Pius X in Des Moines, between 1965 and 1969, that the Humilities lived through their major changes following Vatican II. While at St. Pius, Sister Rachel started summer classes to become an elementary school principal. Beginning in 1971 she taught part-time and lived with three Franciscan sisters in Benton, Missouri, while completing her masters in Elementary Administration at Southeastern Missouri-State University in 1973. She said she had a “taste of southern culture” there also.
With this credential in hand, she was assigned to the new integrated St. Albert the Great system in Council Bluffs, Iowa. It was the result of consolidation of schools from five (5) parishes into three (3) school buildings for 700 grade, middle and high school students. As principal she moved between the elementary and middle school buildings, and had the pleasure of her brother, Father Lawrence Beeson, being the Coordinator for the system during her first year there.
In 1981 Sr. Rachel was named the Plant Manager at the Ottumwa Heights complex, consisting of the Motherhouse and Junior College. When Ottumwa Heights College merged with Indian Hills Community College, a short time earlier, it was with the intention that the community college would purchase the Heights property and buildings. That sale took effect on July 1, so her job was to oversee the move of the Congregation Motherhouse from the long-time Ottumwa property to Davenport, Iowa.
After searching for suitable location in Davenport, the congregation entered into a 99-year-lease with the Diocese of Davenport for a 10-acre section of the former St. Vincent, now diocesan, property. Construction was still in progress when the community leadership and retired sisters moved to the Marycrest College campus in 1982, and Sr. Rachel was coordinator of the retired sisters there. It was late July 1983 when the community finally moved to the new Hmility of Mary Center.
Sr. Rachel had a well-earned break from responsibility and spent an academic year at St. Louis University where she updated her theology and earned a Ministry Certification. She returned to oversee another parish school consolidation in Clinton, Iowa, over several years. Her last school mission was to do the same in Muscatine with the formation of Hayes Elementary School, with pre-school to fifth grades, from two parish schools. She also expanded the religious education program by establishing a new joint program with two lay women. They oversaw the religion program for all middle and high school students, with all classes meeting in Hayes School. To further recognize and promote the value of the program, they advocated for diocesan credentialing of religious educators. It was from Muscatine that she “sort of retired” from teaching in 1994. However she just shifted her attention, and served another eight (8) years as Religious Education Coordinator at St. Anthony Parish in Knoxville, Iowa until 2002.
Sr. Rachel moved from Knoxville to Humility of Mary Center in Davenport where she served as Co-Director of the Seeds of Hope program which placed volunteers with CHMs throughout the country. She continued until the program was discontinued because so many other opportunities existed for volunteers.
Sr. Rachel was a mainstay in congregational leadership and participation. She was a long-time elected representative to the community decision-making bodies and served on the advisory councils to many CHM administrations. From its beginning more than 40 years ago, she has been an advisor to the Associate Program that has enabled men and women, with or without an identified faith, to enter into agreements of mutual support and to participate in CHM-sponsored activities. She was a member of the “Dream Committee” that led to the founding of the Humility housing ministry that has served individuals and families for almost 35 years.
Sr. Rachel identified two high points in her life. The first was the pilgrimage to locations of the community’s founding in France in summer 1989, planned by the CHM/HM Committee. The second was the joint celebration of anniversaries with her priest brother, Msgr. Lawrence Beeson, in July 2020: her 70th from entrance to the community and his 40th from ordination.
During her last few months at Bishop Drumm Retirement Center, Sr. Rachel enjoyed the almost daily company of Msgr. Beeson who lived nearby. Together, they worked at the jigsaw puzzles that were a favorite pastime wherever she lived.
It seems fitting to close with samples from two print sources in her file:
- When leaving St. Anthony’s School in Des Moines in 1980, pastor Father Ryan wrote to the parishioners, “It is with a genuine sense of regret that …Sister Rachel Beeson…will be leaving us after this school year … [June 1980] because she is being called by her own religious community….I publicly say “thank you” for … four years of dedicated professional service to St. Anthony’s.”
- In a booklet celebrating the “8th Annual Friends of Hayes Ball” in April 1994, at the end of her time in Muscatine, “Sr. Rachel Beeson --- Thank you for your leadership, commitment, strength and dedication. And a special thank you from every person who has known and understood your support, talents, compassion and wisdom.”
Sister Mary Rehmann, CHM