Marcella Barbara Houdek was born June 9, 1931, the second of five children of the late Frank and Barbara Sounik Kral Houdek in Cleveland, Ohio. She is survived by two of her sisters, Theresa Pokorny and Barbara Kusa. She was preceded in death by her parents and sister, Mary Ann, and brother, Frank. She is also survived by many nieces and nephews and their families who gathered to celebrate the life of their aunt following her death on July 1.
She was baptized and raised in St. John Nepomucene Parish in Cleveland and graduated from Lourdes Academy in 1949. She entered the Sisters of the Humility of Mary the following January and began her novitiate July 17, receiving her religious name, Sister Liguori. Two years later she professed her first vows and in 1955 she made her final vows. With her surviving ten classmates in religious life she was celebrating her 60th anniversary as a Sister of the Humility of Mary during 2010.
Sister Marcella earned her BSE and her MS in Ed from St. John College, Cleveland in 1961 and 1968 respectively. From 1954-83 and 1993-2002 she taught or was principal in the Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Youngstown dioceses including St. Sebastian, Akron; St. Anthony, Canton; Our Lady of Peace, Canton; Mt. Pleasant Catholic Elementary Center, Cleveland; St. Patrick, Hubbard; St. Mary, Painesville; and Our Lady of Grace, Pittsburgh. From 1983-93 she served as assistant superintendent of schools in the Diocese of Youngstown. She offered her expertise as an educational consultant following those years in the Diocesan Education Office.
She took on new challenges in ministry beginning in 2002 when she became a part-time assistant campus minister at St. Thomas Aquinas High School, Louisville and then in 2004 as vice president of mission integration at Laurel Lake Retirement Community, Hudson, a capacity in which she served for two years.
Fr. John Zuzik, pastor of Little Flower Parish in Middlebranch and celebrant for the funeral Mass on July 7, aptly characterized his friend Sister Marcella when he noted that she “commanded respect” when she walked into a room. He said that was “not only because she was a religious sister, but because of her great stature from the way she lived her life – always putting her faith in Jesus Christ first. She was so well respected in the Canton community. No matter who she met she viewed that person as a child of God.”
Fr. Zuzik also relayed the story of how one day after Mass at St. Benedict’s where Sister Marcella had volunteered since 2007, she told him she thought she was going to retire, slow down and just do a little volunteering. He laughed and told her she was not a “part-time kind of girl! Whatever you do you do it to the fullest.” Within weeks of her so-called retirement she told him that she was on two boards and doing some public speaking about the current realities of human trafficking.
Sister Marcella was serving on the Laurel Lake Foundation Board, Hudson and was the secretary of the Board of Directors for The Center for Learning in Westlake. She was also recently reappointed by Bp. George V. Murry, SJ, to the Board of Mediation and Arbitration for the Diocese of Youngstown’s Office of Conciliation on which she had served since 1998. She was involved with the Collaborative Initiative to End Human Trafficking which is active in the Cleveland and Youngstown dioceses.
May Sister Marcella Houdek rest from her labors for her good works go before her.
Contributions in memory of Sister Marcella Houdek may be forwarded to the Sisters of the Humility of Mary, Development Office, PO Box 534, Villa Maria PA 16155.
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