
Sister Mary Hilary Veith, CHM
Sister Mary Hilary Veith, CHM, 96, died April 20, 2022, at Bishop Drumm Care Center in Johnston. Memorial services were held April 25 at Bishop Drumm Our Lady of Peace Chapel and at Humility of Mary Center, Davenport. On April 26, a vigil service was held at Reece Funeral Home in Ottumwa. Burial will be in Mt. Olivet Cemetery on the Indian Hills campus.
Mary Elizabeth Veith was born in Keokuk. She entered the Congregation of the Humility of Mary in 1955 and professed vows in 1958.
Sister began her service caring for children at the Christ Child Home in Des Moines in 1958 but turned instead to a life of volunteer ministry serving the isolated. She described her work as visiting the shut-ins, including “people who are confined to their own homes, the nursing homes, and the jail,” but also learned sign language and transcribed books into Braille, opening communication with those whose isolation was not physical, but sensory.
S. Mary Hilary was certified as a Volunteer Braille Transcriber by the Library of Congress in 1975. Her outreach ministries earned awards and recognition both at the local and state level. She was awarded the Ottumwa Good Samaritan award in 1972, multiple certificates of appreciation from the Iowa Department for the Blind, the State of Iowa Governor’s Volunteer Award in 1990, and a Certificate of Recognition from the State of Iowa in 2004. The most telling of her awards, however, may be the 1978 Human Relations award bestowed by the First United Methodist Church in Ottumwa, which declared Sister to be “one to whom Christian ethics are practice, not theory.” She is survived by many nieces and nephews as well as her CHM religious community.
Mary Elizabeth Veith was born in Keokuk. She entered the Congregation of the Humility of Mary in 1955 and professed vows in 1958.
Sister began her service caring for children at the Christ Child Home in Des Moines in 1958 but turned instead to a life of volunteer ministry serving the isolated. She described her work as visiting the shut-ins, including “people who are confined to their own homes, the nursing homes, and the jail,” but also learned sign language and transcribed books into Braille, opening communication with those whose isolation was not physical, but sensory.
S. Mary Hilary was certified as a Volunteer Braille Transcriber by the Library of Congress in 1975. Her outreach ministries earned awards and recognition both at the local and state level. She was awarded the Ottumwa Good Samaritan award in 1972, multiple certificates of appreciation from the Iowa Department for the Blind, the State of Iowa Governor’s Volunteer Award in 1990, and a Certificate of Recognition from the State of Iowa in 2004. The most telling of her awards, however, may be the 1978 Human Relations award bestowed by the First United Methodist Church in Ottumwa, which declared Sister to be “one to whom Christian ethics are practice, not theory.” She is survived by many nieces and nephews as well as her CHM religious community.