Sisters of Providence Jubilees

Nine Sisters of Providence will mark 25, 50, 60, 70, and 80 years of religious life at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, September 9, 2017, at Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, 7000 35th Avenue SW, Seattle. Reverend John R. Walmesley will be the celebrant for the liturgy, which will be followed by a reception in the parish hall.

80 Years: Germaine Chabot
70 Years: Maryann Bochsler, Mary Fox, Elizabeth Gress
60 Years: Margaret Botch, Roberta Rorke,
50 Years: Celia Chappell, Joan Gallagher
25 Years: Maribeth Carson

Elizabeth “Liz” Gress, SP
(Sister Rose Monica)
​Born in White Bluffs, Wash., Sister Elizabeth Gress grew up in Richland and Grandview. She first met the Sisters of Providence at St. Joseph Academy in Sprague, Wash., and entered the novitiate at Mount St. Vincent in Seattle in 1946. Her first ministry was a kindergarten classroom at St. Gerard Grade School in Great Falls, Mont. “I had a hard time that first year. My blessing was Sister Virginia Cosner, an excellent teacher, as my supervisor.” Most of her teaching career and other ministries were in Montana except for six years at Maryville Academy in Des Plaines, Ill, outside Chicago. She also was principal of St. Peter and Paul School in Great Falls and spent six years as admissions counselor at the College of Great Falls, followed by two years at Mount St. Joseph, Spokane, in service to retired sisters.

​Sister Liz served St. Luke Parish in Great Falls before becoming a member of the St. Ignatius Province Leadership Team. For two decades she was a seasoned presence living among novices at the Nally House Novitiate Community in Spokane. She also was a volunteer at Our Place ministry in Spokane’s West Central neighborhood and a board member at St. Joseph Hospital in Polson, Mont. In 2016 she moved to Emilie Court in Spokane and currently volunteers at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center.

Margaret Botch, SP
(Sister Eva Marie)
​Sister Margaret Botch was born in Great Falls, Mont., lived in Belt and several other Montana towns where she got to know the Sisters of Providence through religious vacation school classes. After two years of high school in Iraq, where her father was in government service, she graduated from Sacred Heart Academy in Missoula, Mont., and entered the religious community in 1956. One of the early enrollees in the College of Sister Formation, she taught high school English in Great Falls and in Walla Walla, Wash., before becoming the first woman campus minister at Gonzaga University in Spokane in 1972. She assisted parishes in the 1970s and lived for 14 years in a local community focused on contemplative prayer and a simple lifestyle.

​Sister Margaret has been a trailblazer in the religious community, co-chairing the first open chapter with her older sibling, Sister Bernadette Botch, in 1976; serving on the first formation team, directing the revitalized novitiate, and serving two terms as councilor for ministry and religious development. She was on the first Leadership Team of Mother Joseph Province, 2000-04, and became provincial/leadership team coordinator, 2005-09. Today she lives in Walla Walla, supporting the homebound sick, elderly and dying, visiting and praying with them and bringing them Holy Communion.