An Extraordinary Life: 105-year-old Frankfort sister was ‘small but mighty’

Religious sisters don’t always sing in choirs. Sometimes they sing in bathtubs, like Sister Mary Anna Clare Meyer did.

“Oh, yeah, she sang in the bath all the time,” Sister Kim Marie Wolf, a member of the Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Heart in Frankfort and teacher aid at St. Mary Catholic School in Mokena, said. “When I heard her singing that night, she was singing, ‘I’ll Be Coming Around the Mountain.’”

Until a few years ago, Meyer was also fast on her wheelchair: frontwards and backwards, up and down ramps.

“People would say, ‘Look out! Here comes ‘Speedy,’” Wolf said.

In a September 2020 Herald-News story about Sister Anna Clare Meyer’s 105th birthday, Sister Joyce Shanabarger said Meyer aspired to be the oldest member at Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Heart in Frankfort.

“She has a bit of competition in her,” Shanabarger, community leader of FSSH, said in the story  “We have one sister who lived to be 105 and six months. So her big goal is to live at least another six months so she can be the oldest of congregation.”

Meyer, who celebrated her 105th birthday on Sept. 2 and died Jan. 26, didn’t quite make the six months. But she did attain her goal.

Her “baby brother” James of Michigan, who attended Meyer’s 105th birthday celebration in Frankfort, complete with a private brass concert, died the following day at the age of 98.

“When my dad and her were together, they held hands,” Barbara Jacquemin of Michigan and Florida  said. “You could just tell they had a good connection even though they did not get to see each other that much.”

Wolf said Meyer attracted people to her and she “fascinated” the Girl Scouts or students from St. Mary when they came to FSSH to sing Christmas carols or lead crafts.

“I think it was partly because of her age and partly because she showed an interest in them,” Wolf said. ‘She was always interested in everything.”

Wolf said Meyer loved to hear details about the other sisters’ activities, including any trips they took. She loved the gospels and the sermons during Mass and asked people to take notes for her once her hearing declined. Meyer then shared these notes in letters with family and friends, along with holy cards and other items, Jacquemin said.

An avid reader, Meyer had read the Bible from start to finish many times, Jacquemin said. I the evenings, Meyer read the newspaper and the community bulletins, Wolf said. Meyer attended every FSSH community event and even faithfully attended choir practices, singing as best she could, Wolf said. She looked up daily Bible readings and played solitaire on the computer, Wolf added.

Meyer even lived through two pandemics and she happily received the first injection of the COVID-19 vaccine, although not the second one.

“By that time, she was in heaven,” Wolf said.

But that doesn’t mean heaven was ready for her. Wolf said. Barely 5 feet tall, Meyer was “small but mighty,” Wolf said.

“She could be feisty,” Wolf said. “Things had to be a certain way.”

Meyer wanted three napkins at her place, never indulged in more than “half a tablespoon of ice cream” and refused to eat anything with “a lot of cholesterol” – although she did like a “a little bit of wine before she went to bed,” Wolf said.

“She called it her cough medicine,” Wolf said. “I guess it worked for her.”

Meyer taught the other sisters how to pray, how to squeeze “everything” from a tube in order to “use it all” and how live and celebrate life, Wolf said. She greeted everyone each morning with “Happy Feast Day,” Wolf added.

“Her signature line was, ‘You pray for me and I’ll pray for you,’” Wolf said.

Jacquemin said Meyer grew up on a 100-acre farm in Indiana where her father was a sharecropper. Meyer had five older siblings and five younger ones, Jacquemin said. Their home was surrounded by 500 acres of woods.

“Her mother died giving birth in 1927 when she was 11 years old,” Jacquemin said. “And my father was 5. So my father and his younger brother were basically raised by the older girls.”

One of the older sisters, Marguerite, quit her first year of high school to cook for the family on a wooden stove, wash clothes and tend the garden, Jacquemin said. The home had no electricity or running water, but Meyer always felt that “God was taking care of us,” Jacquemin said, quoting Meyer.

“They had a horse and buggy and they would go to the creek to fish with a straight pin,” Jacquemin said. “They made their own fun.”

The children sewed and sold milk, cream and eggs for extra income,  Jacquemin said. One Christmas each child received an orange as a gift. The family raised rabbits to eat and Marguerite made their clothes out of old horse blankets, Jacquemin said.

But the family went to Mass every Sunday. Meyer’s mother had taught the children to pray the “Our Father” and “Hail Mary” at bedtime. When the sisters at Meyer’s school instructed their students to pray about their life’s vocation, Meyer found a quiet place in the attic and prayed, Jacquemin said.

Shanabarger previously said that Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Heart settled in Avilla, Indiana in 1876 when they came to the U.S. from Germany. The sisters taught at the school Meyer attended, Meyer’s introduction to the order.

Meyer entered the Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Heart in 1935, professing vows in 1938.

But Meyer always remained close to her family and attended most family reunions, Jacquemin said.

As a religious sister, Meyer worked in an orphanage kitchen, cooked for a bishop and did housework and butchering before becoming clinical lab aide in hospitals, Jacquemin said.

Meyer who once said, “I use prayer to communicate,” loved the Divine Office and called the psalms “poetry,” Jacquemin said.

Jacquemin said Meyer, who always smiled, liked Irish poetry and blessings, especially this one: “May God grant you always a sunbeam to warm you, a moonbeam to charm you, a sheltering angel so nothing can harm you, laughter to cheer you, faithful friends near you. And whenever you pray, Heaven to hear you.”

“She was quiet, but I always felt at peace around her,” Jacquemin said.

One day when Meyer was visiting, Jacquemin left her young children in Meyer’s care and took a walk. Meyer prayed aloud and the baby fell asleep beside her.

Wolf said Meyer often paused to pray: “I will not be anxious or worried about anything. Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place my trust in thee.”

“That just struck a few of us,” Wolf said. “Maybe that’s another reason that she lived long: she trusted in God and was not anxious or worried.”

• To feature someone in “An Extraordinary Life,” contact Denise M. Baran-Unland at 815-280-4122 or dunland@shawmedia.com.