Sister Kathleen Farley, RSM

FARLEY, Sister Kathleen, RSM, 90, (Sister Mary Timothy) passed away peacefully at Mount St. Rita Health Centre on Monday, March 16, 2015, with family and Community present and supporting her passage to eternal life.  Kathleen spent many happy and accomplished years of ministry in education, health care, and administration.  Besides the years of teaching elementary school at St. Mary’s Academy, Bay View, Immaculate Conception, Westerly and SS. Peter and Paul, West Warwick, she also served as principal of four schools in the Providence diocese:  St. Margaret, Rumford; St. Timothy and St. Peter, Warwick and St. Theresa School, Pawtucket.  She also administered the Greater Woonsocket Catholic Regional School System from 1976-1983, including responsibilities as Personnel and Finance Director.

In the Fall River, MA diocese in the 1960’s, she was Principal and Treasurer of Mount St. Mary Academy, Food Service Director and Finance Director for Mount St. Mary Infirmary, and Head of the Business Department at Bishop Feehan High School.  Her ‘unofficial title’ at Feehan was costume designer and creative seamstress for several of the student performances – Oklahoma! being her favorite memory.

Kathleen’s gifts in Health Care Administration were also recognized by the community in her appointment as Administrator of (then) St. Margaret Home in Providence for working and retired women.  When Kathleen chose to relocate to Mount St. Rita following heart surgery in 2012, she was returning to the ministry which she loved and where she had served in the 1980’s as Assistant Administrator, and Director of Personnel and Finance.  She had also served as a member of the Sisters of Mercy Provincial Team in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s as Treasurer and Secretary.

At the time that Sister Kathleen received The National Catholic Education Associate Principal of the Year Award, she was described by a faculty member as “a woman generous with the gifts of herself – responding with sensitivity and patience to the concerns of others.  Having mastered the art of loving with an open hand, she knows how to show friendship just by being.”

She leaves a sister, Patricia Farley, RSM; nephews, Robert, John and Richard; a niece, Jane Farley Pontes, and several grandnieces and grandnephews.  She was predeceased by two brothers, Rev. John F. Farley and Robert V. Farley, as well as her parents, John Francis and Mary Magdalen (Gallagher) Farley. 

Sister Kathleen's wake will be held at Mount St. Rita Health Centre, 15 Sumner Brown Road, Cumberland from 3:00 – 6:00 pm on Thursday, March 19, 2015 with a Mercy prayer service at 4:00 pm.  A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated in Mount St. Rita Chapel on Friday, March 20, 2015 at 11:00 am. The interment service will take place at St. Ann’s Cemetery, Cranston, following the collation.  In lieu of flowers or Mass cards, donations may be sent to ReFocus, Inc., 45 Greeley Street, Providence, RI 02904.   Information and condolences, please visit: www.galloglyfuneralhome.com

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