Sister Laurentia Koehler died Dec. 29 at the age of 89.
Last summer, she celebrated 70 years as a professed member of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ. In 1996, she served as principal of Saint John Nepomuk Catholic School in Yukon. She finished her ministry in education at Holy Trinity Catholic School in Okarche, teaching part-time and caring for her elderly mother.
Sister Laurentia was born in Spearville, Kansas, on March 21, 1935, the first child of Lawrence and Anna (Temaat) Koehler. She was baptized Juliana Catherine the next day at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in the small Catholic community of Windhorst.
Twenty years after her profession of vows, Sister Laurentia wrote a vocational narrative, saying, “For some reason I always kind of wanted to be a sister. Without a doubt, having three aunts in this community and an uncle who was a Redemptorist influenced me in my younger, energetic and idealistic years.
“Mother and Dad, from my earliest memories, always put their faith, their Church, ahead of everything else. I see all this as God’s way of pointing me to the religious way of life and to this particular community of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ. I remember … praying to know what God wanted me to do.”
Preceding Sister Laurentia in death were her parents, Lawrence and Anna and her sisters Dolores Gruenbacher Clarke and Alice Stejskal. She is survived by her brother, Richard Koehler, and sister, Cleona Oltermann, nieces and nephews, and her ASC community members.
Sister Laurentia’s wake was held Jan.3 at the Wichita Center. Reverend Tom Welk presided and the Rev. Alan Hunter, a cousin, was the homilist at the Mass of Christian Burial. Burial followed in the convent cemetery.