Sister Mary Catherine Coupé, OSF, who was an instructor at the former Mount St. Clare College in Clinton for 30 years, died Sept. 1 at The Alverno in Clinton. She was 93.
She was born in Nebraska as Catherine Rosalia. She entered the congregation of the Sisters of St. Francis at Mount St. Clare Convent in Clinton, on Dec. 8, 1928, and received the name Mary Scholastica at her reception on Sept. 8, 1930, later resuming her baptismal name. She made her first profession on Sept. 8, 1932, and her final profession on June 13, 1937.
Sr. Coupé earned an Associate of Arts degree from Mount St. Clare College, a Bachelor of Arts degree from St. Ambrose College in Davenport, a Master of Arts degree from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., with a concentration in Spanish and Latin American history and a Master of Arts in romance languages from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Sr. Coupé also studied at the University of Iowa and De Paul University in Chicago. She pursued advanced studies in Spanish at Loyola University in Chicago and spent a year doing archival research in Seville and Madrid, Spain. She held Iowa elementary and secondary permanent professional teaching certificates.
Most of Sr. Coupé’s 53 years of active ministry was as a Spanish instructor at Mount St. Clare College from 1959-89. After withdrawing from classroom teaching, she offered private instruction in Spanish. Prior to teaching in college, she taught elementary and junior high school students at St. Boniface School in Clinton and other schools in Iowa and Illinois.
In 1990 she retired to Mount St. Clare Convent and lived at The Canticle from 1997 until last month when she moved to The Alverno.
Her funeral was held Sept. 4 at The Canticle with burial at St. Irenaeus Cemetery in Clinton.
