Franciscan Sisters of Immaculate Conception
86 Saracen Street
Glasgow
G22 5AD
Tel: 0141 336 3027
Fax: 0141 336 4096
Charity No SC 006881 7109
 
 
Obituaries
 
We ask your prayers for three of our Sisters who have died in the past year, all of whom were very much a part of our missionary life:
 
Sister Augustina Fabule was one of our Nigerian Sisters, and one of our very first Nigerian novices. After many years of pastoral work in Nigeria she came to Glasgow to help care for our old Sisters – a job she truly loved. On her return to Nigeria, Sister became ill and was advised to come back to UK for treatment.

She was living with our Ruchill community and appeared to be doing very well when she became suddenly very ill during the Evening Office on October 2nd and sadly, died within 24 hours. Bishop Gabriel Abegunrin and members of Sister’s family came for her funeral, which took place on October 12th 2007. Augustina was just 57.
   
   
Sister Angela McFaul was one of our pioneer missionaries – one of the first group of four young Sisters who left Glasgow in 1950 to open the Nigerian mission.

After many years devoted to teaching in Nigeria, Angela went on to teach in America and then devoted her retiral years to parish work in Kilsyth, where she was a very well known figure.

She had just celebrated her diamond jubilee when the cancer she had fought so bravely overtook her and she died in Stobhill Hospital on the 10th December 2007 at the age of 81.
   
   

Sr. M. Annunciata Costello was born in the Govanhill district of Glasgow on the 19th April 1916 and was baptised Anna. She was the youngest of a family of five, and the only girl.

She was only two when her father died, at the age of just 34. Anna’s early days were spent in Holy Cross and St. Conval’s Primary Schools, then in Charlotte Street, and from there she went to Notre Dame College of Education where she trained as a primary teacher.

Since childhood, she had always wanted to be a Sister, but her mother was understandably reluctant to part with her. So Anna took up a teaching post in St. Mungo’s and continued to help care for the family until her mother’s death in 1942.

Shortly afterwards, she fulfilled her ambition and entered the convent in Merrylee, being received there in April 1945 and professed in 1947. She taught briefly in St. Bride’s Bothwell, but most of her teaching life was spent where she had begun - in St. Mungo’s Townhead, where she rapidly became a well-known, well-loved, and well-remembered head teacher.

In 1978, she was appointed superior of the founding community that came to Possilpark, to work in St. Teresa’s Parish. With her were Sister M. Imelda (her niece) and Sr. M. Baptist. Annunciata, with typical wit and humour, quickly became involved in parish and pastoral work.

From Possilpark, she moved to Dennistoun for a short time and then to Ardrossan where she opened a House of Prayer and again became actively involved in parish work. In 1990 she went to Falcarragh in N. Ireland to help care for the boarders in the secondary boarding school and from there moved to Dixon Avenue for a year before eventually retiring, at the age of 79, to the Bothwell community. In 2000 this became the Possilpark community, and it was there that she spent the remainder of her life.

Sister loved music, and regularly played the organ in Merrylee. She loved reading, and art work of all kinds. She had a natural ability to relate to people and her family retain the strongest memories of a very professional and strict headmistress who could so easily become the greatest source of fun and entertainment. “Aunt Nancy” was a powerful influence in all their lives and remained so right to the end of her life. Sister’s latter years were dogged by ill-health, and she spent many a Christmas as a patient in Stobhill Hospital. But her natural resilience always surfaced and she would return to Saracen Street for another few months.

A small stroke signalled a marked deterioration in her condition, and because it affected her ability to swallow, she needed to have 24-hour nursing home care. She was transferred to Four Hills Nursing Home, and for several months thrived on the loving care and attention she received from the staff there. In the last week of her life she developed pneumonia and gradually lost consciousness. Death came as no more than a whisper on the afternoon of Monday 21st July 2008 and she went peacefully to the Lord she had served so well for more than 92 years of life and 62 years of religious life.

May she rest in peace.
May they rest in peace