Irene Bopp was born in Chicago on March 15, 1924, the middle child of John Bopp and Catherin Breight, both immigrants from the German-speaking area of Russia. As she wrote, "Growing up in a happy German immigrant home with two sisters and six brothers was, for me, a very special blessing. I was blessed with parents who loved all their children very much and who taught us through example the importance of God and the Blessed Mother in our lives."
Irene was baptized at St. Alphonsus in Chicago, and attended grade school there. At her first holy communion, despite her teacher’s admonition that they could request a religious vocation, Irene prayed, "Jesus I love you." As she wrote, "I wasn’t taking a chance on leaving my family."
A sorrow in her young life was the departure of her sister Rose, later Sister Gemma, to enter the SSND convent in Milwaukee, as a candidate in 1933. Five years later, Irene entered the Juniorate (aspiranture) at the Academy of Our Lady in Chicago. She struggled with homesickness, until one night "I felt I had to get this settled once and for all with God." She told God that since her parents would soon have no girls left at home, IF God gave them another daughter, she would know that God "really wanted me to be a Sister." Her baby sister Margaret Mary was born in due time, and Irene knew then that she was meant to be an SSND.
In 1940, after two years as a Junior, Irene entered the candidature in Milwaukee. At reception, she received the name Sister John Mary. She pronounced her first vows on July 29, 1943, and her final vows on July 29, 1949.
Sister John Mary’s first assignment was to Holy Cross, Milwaukee, as teacher of primary grades. "I knew that now my task of leading the little children to God was about to begin." To her surprise and joy, she spent 17 years at Holy Cross. After a few years of learning from the other sisters, Sister John Mary was also frequently asked to give teaching demonstrations and to assist the newly professed sisters in techniques of teaching. "I especially loved to help them in the teaching of religion," she remembered.
Over the next many years, Sister Irene served as teacher and administrator at several Wisconsin and Illinois schools, and eventually as an education consultant for the Archdiocese of Chicago.
In 1960, Sister John Mary earned a Master of Education. In 1965, when the Milwaukee Province was divided, she was uncertain about which province to choose. Due to her parents’ advanced age, she chose the Chicago Province, confiding in Mother Antonice, provincial in Mequon, Wisconsin at the time, that "there were three missions in the Chicago Province to which I had no desire to go…St. Margaret of Scotland, Peoria, and St. Alphonsus. And I went to all three in that order."
Nevertheless, once she arrived at each of those schools, she loved each one. In 1971, while she was still in Peoria, Sister John Mary volunteered to go to a new SSND mission to be formed in Thailand. However, she was called by Mother Elred, then provincial in the DeKalb-Chicago Province, and asked to consider being principal at St. Alphonsus, because nobody else wanted the position. "’Mother,’ I replied, ‘where am I needed most?’ ‘St. Alphonsus,’ she said. So, I never did get to Thailand, but served for seven years at St. Alphonsus instead. Once again, I fell in love with the place though it was a bit different being the principal of the school from which I graduated." (The mission in Thailand never materialized.)
Along with administration, Sister Irene also was a member of many parish organizations, including the finance committee, and served the also served the Chicago Archdiocese as secretary of the principals’ association and a member of the principal interview team.
In 1974, a Master of Fine Arts in Theology was added to her attainments. From 1979 to 1993, Sister Irene, as she came to be called, served as an education consultant in the Archdiocese of Chicago, working particularly with school boards, especially when schools were merging or being consolidated.
In 1993, at the invitation of Sister Marlene Panko, then provincial in Chicago, Sister Irene began the development office for the Chicago Province, a position she enjoyed and continued for ten years.
In 2003, she moved to Resurrection Life Center in Chicago, where her lifelong cheerfulness was appreciated by staff and patients.
Sister Irene died on May 14, 2017, at the Rainbow ARK unit at Resurrection Hospital in Chicago. She is survived by her sister Margaret Davidson, and by many devoted nieces and nephews and their families.
Visitation was held at Presence Resurrection Life Center on May 25. The wake and Mass of Christian Burial were held at Mater Christi Church in North Riverside, Illinois, on the same date. Interment was on May 26 at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, Alsip, Illinois.
- Sister Charlaine Fill, SSND
