Sister Cyrilla Marks, 1908-1998
Born January 27, 1908, Covington, Kentucky
Entered St. Walburg Monastery, October 7, 1925
First Profession February 9, 1928
Died February 19, 1998
Information on Sr. Cyrilla’s early childhood is sketchy. There were a large number of children, perhaps as many as fourteen. Her father was from New York: her mother from Nottingham, England. One of her parents died when she was quite young and the children were split up. The older ones were kept at home; the youngest were placed at St. John Orphanage in the care of the Benedictine Sisters and it was there that she was baptized in 1916.
At the age of seventeen, Sr. Cyrilla entered St. Walburg Monastery. In October, 1930 she began a long teaching career. For forty-eight years she taught all the grade levels in most of the local elementary schools that the Benedictine Sisters staffed. Twenty-four of these years were spent at Holy Cross School.
She taught all those years despite the fact that she had serious heart and other health problems throughout her life. After her classroom experiences, she spent a number of years tutoring element and bilingual students.
Sr. Cyrilla loved to sing and she was skilled at huck-towelling and the fine art of tatting. In her last years her hands were seldom without her rosary. She had an effusive and affectionate personality. She was full of praise, affirmation and promise of prayer whenever and wherever you met her.