By Thea Jarvis

Funeral services for Sister Mary Eulalia Carper, VHM, were held at the Monastery of the Visitation in Snellville July 21. Monastery chaplain Father Michael Hogan presided at the Mass, which was concelebrated by Father Louis Naughton, homilist and Fathers Augustine Moore, OCSO, Joseph Thevenet, MSFS, James Fennessy and John F. Harvey, OSFS.

"The chapel was filled with friends" from all over the archdiocese, said Mother Jozefa Kowalewski, VHM, superior at the monastery, who characterized Sister Eulalia as "a person who made very fast friends."

Sister Eulalia, 79, died of cancer in her monastery cell July 19. According to Mother Jozefa, she participated in the prayer life of the community up until her death.

"She was a very valiant woman," Mother Jozefa said.

Sister Eulalia, an Indiana native, entered the Visitation order in 1930 at the age of 17 and taught art at the order's grade and high schools in Georgetown, KY. When she decided to embrace a strict cloistered life, she transferred to Atlanta in 1969. She was religious superior when the monastery moved from Ponce de Leon Avenue to its present location in 1974.

Charles Weldon, Jr., a Corpus Christi parishioner and supporter of the Visitation community, was among those who attended Sister Eulalia' funeral. He had met her in 1986 and came to know her well.

"We used to talk," said Weldon, who appreciated Sister Eulalia's informal counsel. "She was very much at peace. She had a lot of serenity about her, a lot of wisdom about life, a lot of strength and integrity."

Sister Eulalia was known for her ceramic art, particularly the nativity scenes she made available to people in the area.

"She was an artist," said Mother Jozefa, "and was great for helping the poor."

Mother Jozefa said the community held an election shortly before Sister Eulalia's death to choose a new superior for the monastery. Sister Mary Immaculata Collin, VHM, the youngest of the three surviving sisters of the original 10 who founded the community from the order's Toledo, Ohio, monastery in 1954, was chosen to succeed Mother Jozefa on July 16.

Sister Immaculata has been mistress of novices at Visitation Monastery for 22 years. She will serve an initial term of three years as head of the Snellville community, which now numbers 19 women.

Mother Jozefa, a Delaware native who came to Snellville nine years ago to lead the community, will remain at Visitation and continue to serve as president of the First Federation of the Visitation USA, which follows a strictly cloistered religious life.