Submitted by: Dan Rich

Sister Mother M. Rose Elizabeth Havican CSC

1891 – Nov. 26, 1964

South Bend Tribune 11/28/1964

Mother M. Rose Elizabeth CSC, former superior general of the Sisters of the Holy Cross, died Friday night in Georgetown Hospital, Washington DC. She was 72. She governed the congregation from 1943 to 1955. Prior to her election she served as provincial superior of the Eastern Province, with headquarters in Washington, from 1939 to 1943. Since 1963 she was first assistant to Mother M. Loretto, superior of the Eastern Province. She was born Elizabeth Rose Havican in Homestead, Pa. in 1891 where she attended grade school. She received her B. A. degree from St. Mary’s College in 1915. She entered the Sisters of the Holy Cross in 1917 and received the habit in 1918. She made her first vows in 1920 and her final vows in 1923. She completed her master’s degree at the University of Notre Dame in 1927 and did graduate work at the University of Wisconsin and at John Hopkins University.

A member of the St. Mary’s College faculty in the English and Speech departments, she was transferred to Washington as superior of St. Paul’s Academy. Later she was appointed superior of the Academy of the Holy Cross in Washington and in 1935 opened Dunbarton College of Holy Cross in Washington. Following her term as Superior General she was assigned to Durbarton College at superior from 1957 to 1963. During her administration as Superior General she initiated work at the Sisters of the Holy Cross in San Paulo, Brazil, and in the establishment of Holy Cross College in Dacca, East Pakistan.

Requiem high mass will be sung at 11 a.m. Tuesday in the Church of Our Lady of Loretto at St. Mary’s with burial in Our Lady of Peace Cemetery, on the St. Mary’s campus.