Sister Marian Keeven O.S.F.

Sr. Marian Keeven, 89, died December 30, 2014 at Resurrection Life Center in Chicago, Illinois. She was born in Florissant, Missouri, one of fourteen children. Sr. Marian entered the Wheaton Franciscan order in 1944 and professed perpetual vows in 1950. Sr. Marian is survived by her brother, Dr. James Keeven of East Moline, IL; and her two sisters, Rosalie T. Coleman of St. Charles, and JoAnn Thrasher of O'Fallon, MO. She is preceded in death by her parents, Aloysius and Josephine, her sisters, Sister Mary John Keeven, CPPS and Sister Helen Keeven, CPPS and her brothers Louis, Aloysius, Norbert, Maurice, Frank, Leonard and Sylvester and Anthony "Tony". As a Franciscan Sister, Marian received the name Sister M. Maurice with the title "of the Sacred Heart of Jesus." During her life she received the degrees of an M.A. in English and M.S. in Religious Education at Loyola University in Chicago. Sr. M. Maurice's first years in ministry were devoted to teaching. This role she fulfilled at St. Clara's Orphanage, Denver; St. Joseph's School, Raymond, Iowa; Transfiguration School, Wauconda, Illinois; and St. Francis High School, Wheaton. In 1968 Sr. Marian, as she was now called, became the administrator of John XXIII Communication Center in Denver. From 1971 to 1994, Sr. Marian served in social service and pastoral care at St. Anthony Hospital, St. Louis; Fermin Desloge Hospital, St. Louis; St. Francis Medical Center, Cape Girardeau; and finally at St. Joseph Hospital, St. Charles, Missouri. Upon retirement from active ministry in 1994, Sr. Marian continued as a volunteer at St. Joseph's Hospital in St. Charles until she moved to the Motherhouse in Wheaton in 2008 where all experienced her loving and gentle presence.