Sister Carmel O'Keeffe, a pioneer of international education in Japan for half a century, died of heart failure on Monday, Oct. 17, in her hometown of Cork, Ireland. She was 93 years old. Her funeral took place in Cork on Oct. 19.
Born in 1918 as Eileen O'Keeffe, she was educated in Ireland and Scotland and took her vows in 1939 as a sister of the Congregation of the Infant Jesus, a Catholic order dating to the 17th century. She was sent to Yokohama in 1947 to re-establish Saint Maur International School, originally founded in 1872 and the oldest Catholic school in Japan. Thousands of her former students throughout Japan and the world remember her strong moral influence to this day.
Over an astounding span of 60 years, Sister Carmel taught three generations of students, first in wartime wooden barracks and later in the modern school buildings whose construction she oversaw.
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