S. Grace Feldhacker, OSB

S. Grace Feldhacker OSB, age 92, of Yankton, South Dakota, died Sunday, June 3, 2018. A wake service will be held at 7:00 PM, on Wednesday, June 6, 2018 and the Funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10:00 AM, on Thursday, June 7, both in Bishop Marty Memorial Chapel in Yankton. Burial will be in the Sacred Heart Monastery Cemetery in Yankton. Arrangements are under the direction of the Wintz & Ray Funeral Home and Cremation Service in Yankton. Agatha Feldhacker was born on July 4, 1925 on the family farm near Crofton, Nebraska. She was the sixteenth of seventeen children of Edward and Julia Rose (Tramp) Feldhacker. She attended the Beaver Creek public school through the eighth grade. Agatha entered Sacred Heart Monastery on August 30, 1939 at the age of fourteen, and attended Mount Marty High School. She was invested as a novice on June 23, 1942 and received the name Grace. S. Grace made her first profession on June 24, 1943, and her final profession on June 24, 1947. She would have celebrated her 75th Jubilee of Profession this summer. After many years of summer school, she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in education from Mount Marty College. S. Grace ministered to God’s little ones as a teacher of primary grades, most of her years teaching first grade. In her early years, she served in schools in Richardton, North Dakota and missions in South Dakota. Later, she was assigned to missions in her home state, and served in Lincoln, Omaha, Albion and Hartington, Nebraska. She ended her teaching career in 1979 and began working in Food Services at Avera Sacred Heart Hospital in Yankton, South Dakota. She retired from the hospital after serving twenty-five years, and continued to volunteer at the hospital as long as she was physically able. S. Grace loved her family and kept running tallies of the many nieces and nephews she had in the generations who followed her. She approached life with a childlike innocence and was delighted by the places she saw as she traveled in later years. She was also known for her competitive nature when playing cards. S. Grace is survived by her Benedictine community and numerous nieces and nephews. She is preceded in death by her parents and all her siblings.