Sister Melvina L. Bennett, S.S.N.D.

A funeral Mass for Sister Melvina L. Bennett, S.S.N.D., who served as an assistant director of Marian House, a residence and training program for women in transition, was held July 28 at Villa Assumpta in Baltimore. Sister Melvina died suddenly of complications from cancer at Union Memorial Hospital, Baltimore, July 23. She was 64.
When Sister Melvina moved to Baltimore at the end of her senior year in college, she became a member of St. Matthew, Northwood. She was drawn to the School Sisters of Notre Dame because they had a significant role in her spiritual renewal. She entered the community in 1981, and made her final vows in 1990 at St. Veronica in Cherry Hill.
From 1987-1994, she served as parent liaison and family services coordinator at St. Veronica. In 1994 she began working at Marian House in Waverly as a counselor and education coordinator and was program director and assistant director at the time of her death.
Sister was named to the Governor’s Commission on Women by Governor William Donald Schaefer. She also served as chaplain to the Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange Court of the Catholic Daughters of America and was the first female chaplain in Maryland. Sister Melvina also served on numerous committees in her religious community-notably on the General Chapter Preparatory Commission in Rome and on the initial interprovincial committees reconfiguring three provinces of Wilton, Conn., Chicago, Ill. and Baltimore of her religious community.