After living with challenging health issues for many years, Sister Jo Anne Murphy slipped away from us peacefully on November 28, 2023, at Ascension Villa Franciscan Place.

Jo Anne was born on April 6, 1947, in Chicago, to Joseph Murphy and Elizabeth (Nowak) Murphy. She was the oldest of a large family of siblings when her mother died in 1957. Though only ten years old, Jo Anne stepped in with a mother’s heart to care for one brother and six sisters. Her responsibilities grew when her father remarried and her stepmother, Jeanette (Szot) gave birth to three more girls.

After graduating from St. Francis de Sales High School in Chicago in 1965, Jo Anne entered the community of Joliet Franciscans, received the name Sister Miriam James as a novice, and made her profession of vows in 1968. At that time, Jo Anne said, “I felt God and I were going to be partners for life.” In college, she majored in math. Her quick mind made her an ideal student of computer technology and she was an early pioneer in the community for computer troubleshooting. Sister Marie Miller, one of Jo Anne’s classmates, said there were two dynamics at work within her: the heart of a mother and a computer brain.

From 1969 to 1982, Jo Anne worked in Illinois elementary schools first as a math teacher, then as a principal. By 1983, she was a math instructor at the College of St. Francis in Joliet and a computer specialist for Our Lady of Angels Retirement Home. In January of 1985, her computer skills continued to grow as she became the programmer for Household Finance Corporation in Northbrook, Illinois, for four years, then the manager of data processing operations at the College of St. Francis for three years.

Read More About Sister Jo Anne’s Life

If you would like to make a donation in honor of Sister Jo Anne or another Joliet Franciscan Sister, please click here:  Remembering our Deceased Sisters.