Sister Mary Bernadette Phillips, OP passed peacefully away on December 31, 2011 in Siena Hall Infirmary. Born in New York on December 6, 1932 she entered the Dominican Sisters of Sparkill on September 8, 1952 and received the name Sr. Catherine Martin. She professed her first vows in 1954 and her final vows in 1959.
Throughout her professional career, Bernadette was a group mother, teacher, campus minister and office staff worker. She served in the Archdiocese of New York and the Dioceses of Syracuse and Rockville Center. She was a group mother at St. Agnes Home and at Cardinal McCloskey. She taught elementary school at St. Rose of
Lima, New York, NY; St. Christopher, Red Hook, NY; St. Catherine, Binghamton, NY and St. Catherine of Siena, New York, NY. She served on the staff of Holy Trinity HS, Hicksville, NY and as office staff member and campus minister at Albertus Magnus HS, Bardonia, NY for twenty- seven years. In 2007 she became a resident of Siena Hall Infirmary. We will remember Bernadette for her wonderful zest for life, her great sense of humor and her compassionate and caring ways. She showed a real sense of Dominican hospitality to the many she greeted in Saugerties during summer vacations; always seeing that you had everything you needed to make your stay comfortable and enjoyable. Her trust in the God she served so faithfully for fifty-nine years was especially evident in her acceptance of her illness these past four years. We thank Bernadette for her life as a Dominican Sister of Sparkill and may she rest in peace and joy in the arms of her loving God.