went simple, silent and unknown.”
Bishop Joseph McShea, Auxiliary Bishop of Philadelphia, preached the funeral that was attended by 250 Bishops, priests and brothers. He said, “The beloved soul of Mother Katharine was activated, inspired and impelled by an insatiable love of God and by complete subjection to His adorable Will. Hers was not a humanitarianism that stops where true love should begin. She was not a mere social reformer, educator or philanthropist striving to better the condition of her fellow man while permitting him to ignore God.” Mother was a true missionary with a contemplative heart and true love of God and neighbor.
Six pallbearers carried out her coffin. Fittingly, two were White, two were African-American and two were Native Americans. Her coffin was interred in a crypt underneath the chapel at the Motherhouse in Bensalem, Pennsylvania.
Mother Drexel’s long life was framed by the Civil War and the Korean War. It included the Industrial Revolution, the Centennial Year of the Declaration of Independence and the Atomic Age.
In her lifetime, Mother spent millions of dollars from the income of the Drexel Trust Fund and used it to establish 60 institutions to care for the education of 25,000 Native and African Americans. She started with 13 Sisters who grew to 503 at the time of her death. She founded 49 convents for her Sisters, set up training courses for catechists and teachers, established 12 schools for Native Americans and nearly 100 schools in rural areas and inner cities of the South to educate African-Americans. She founded Xavier University the first Catholic university predominantly for African-Americans in the Western Hemisphere. The schools and the Sisters who staffed them influenced generations of students, their parents and their communities.
At the time of Mother Drexel’s death, there were more than 500 Sisters teaching in 63 schools in the United States. Soon after her death, the American Civil Rights Movement began to bring equal justice under the law to all. She was a true American. Her roots begin in early American history and she implemented the American democratic principles of equal rights and opportunities for all regardless of race, color, religion or national origin. She helped to forge the way for the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 and the Voting Rights Bill of 1965.