Sr. Mary Catherine Beadreau, fmm (M Alodia of the Infants Jesus)
 

    Born: November 13, 1927
    Pre-Novitiate: December 12, 1945
    Novitiate: June 13, 1946
    First Vows: June 13, 1948
    Final Vows: June 13, 1951
    Born to Eternal Life: December 5, 2014                           

Early Years

Sr. Mary Catherine (Cathy) Boudreaux was born November 13, 1927 in Salt Lake City, Utah, the fifth of
six children born to Frank and Frieda Boudreau. She was brought up in the deserts and mountains of
southern Nevada, where the family was often without priest and sacraments for long periods of time. She
attended public schools for eleven years; her twelfth year was finally in a Catholic boarding school in
California.
God’s Call
It was there that she became attracted to the Franciscan spirit and made her final decision to enter
religious life. Cathy was looking for three things before making her choice of a religious community:
Franciscan, missionary and the care of lepers. At that time a magazine of the Propagation of the Faith
came into her hands for Australia to begin a leper hospital.
She set out to travel to Holy Family Novitiate in North Providence, RI. She arrived at the door of the
convent at midnight. Although she had never met an FMM and all contact was done by correspondence,
she was determined that she was there to stay.
Missionary life
Cathy made her first vows in June 1948 and was sent to Orient Heights in East Boston, becoming one of
the original group who closed that house and opened the then Kennedy Memorial Hospital in 1949. She
made her final vows in 1951 and continued to work at KMH, now known as Franciscan Hospital for
Children, with mentally and physically handicapped children until September 1952 when she began
studies at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital School of Nursing.
She graduated in 1955 and immediately began studies at Boston College, graduating in 1958. She was
then sent to St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn as Director of Nursing. She spent eleven years at St. Francis
Hospital until the long awaited day of her being sent in mission to Indonesia in 1969. Cathy spent
sixteen years in Indonesia, fourteen of which were on her beloved Island of Flores. She visited and cared
for the sick in their village homes.
Cathy was sent to the United States in 1986 to help care for her mother.
During that time her visa for Indonesia expired and she was not able to obtain a renewal.
She was missioned to Holy Family community in North Providence, RI. where she helped in the care of
our elderly sisters. After two years she was missioned to Hazlehurst, GA, working as a transcriptionist in
the clinic.
Her next mission was to St. Bonaventure Indian Mission in Thoreau, NM. where she was involved with
the Montessori Program. Then she was sent in mission to Oakland/San Francisco in a ministry serving the
Catholic Indonesian Community in that area. She served eight years in that ministry until declining health
required her being sent in mission to the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary Assisted Living Residence in
North Providence, RI and finally to St. Antoine’s Residence for further health care.
In one of her last writings she wrote:
“Community life, active participation in it, … are very important to me.” She gave priority to the family
spirit which she said had always attracted her so much in the Institute - “sharing joys, sorrows, and hopes
with one another, even though oceans may separate us.”