Sister Mary Carla Koestner, SSND, died Thursday, Jan. 14, at Anna House, The Sarah Community, in Bridgeton, Mo. She was 99 and a former teacher and music teacher.
Sr. Koestner was born in Burlington. She entered the congregation of the School Sisters of Notre Dame in 1936 from St. John the Baptist Parish in Burlington. She professed first vows in 1939 and final vows in 1945. She earned a bachelor’s degree in applied music from Quincy College in Quincy, Ill., in 1953.
She was in education for 43 years. In the Davenport Diocese, she taught at Sacred Heart in Fort Madison from 1968-77; and Aquinas-West in Fort Madison from 1977-82. She was principal and teacher at St. Anthony in Knoxville from 1961-67.
From 1982-94, Sr. Koestner was a school secretary at St. Paul and St. John in Burlington, and from 1994-97, she was a child care worker at St. John’s Extended Day Care in Burlington. In 2001 she moved to the motherhouse in St. Louis and retired in 2005.
A memorial Mass will be held at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 30, in the School Sisters of Notre Dame Motherhouse Chapel, 320 E. Ripa Ave., in south St. Louis County.
