Mary Rose Gerhardt Sword died, Friday March 2, 2018 in Fort Worth, Texas, just one month shy of her 92nd birthday.
Funeral services are at Pius XII Newman Center Catholic Church in Brookings on Monday March 12, at 11 a.m. with the Rev. Andrew Dickinson officiating. Visitation at the church is from 9:30 a.m. until the time of the service with a Rosary recitation at 10:30 am. Burial is at St. Thomas Moore Catholic Cemetery.
Mary Sword was born on April 1, 1926, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the daughter of Martin and Mary (Baeumle) Gerhardt. She spoke often of a wonderful childhood with her older brother Kenny in Milwaukee where baseball, ice skating, swimming in Lake Michigan, and singing were greatly enjoyed. She graduated from West Division High School and then Mount Mary College where she became a medical technologist and developed a deep interest in microbiology.
She was employed as a technologist and later as a microbiologist at Milwaukee County Hospital while she obtained her Master of Science degree in microbiology from Milwaukee’s Marquette University.
While employed at Saint John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, California, Mary earned her Ph.D. in microbiology from UCLA in 1957. Dr. Mary R. Gerhardt was then employed at the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) in Atlanta, Georgia.
Her husband, Christopher Patrick and she met while both were graduate students at UCLA. They were united in marriage on June 18, 1959, in Milwaukee and resided in Lawrence, Kansas for 10 years where Chris held an associate professorship and Mary was a Research Associate and worked at Saint Francis Hospital in Topeka. Mary retired in 1965 following the onset and rapid progression of acute rheumatoid arthritis. The family moved to Terre Haute, Indiana in 1970 where Chris was Chairman of the Indiana State University Department of Life Sciences. In 1976, the family moved to Brookings, where Chris was Dean of the Graduate School and Director of Research at SDSU.
Mary was a loving, wise, and devoted mother and friend to her children throughout their childhood and adult lives.
She had a tremendous love for life and all its pleasures from the celebration of all holidays, great and small, to long conversations with her kids as she sat on her deck beneath the shade of a huge silver maple with a cup of coffee, her two cats- Midgie and Maurie, and the birds she was so fond of feeding. Mary believed in God’s goodness, love of family, perseverance, and “Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.” She will be so greatly missed. Mary was of the Catholic faith and a member of Kappa Gamma Pi, a Catholic Women’s Honor Society.
Mary is survived by three daughters, Mary Anne Sayer of Pineville, Louisiana, (Tommy), Carolyn Barbara Sword of Minneapolis, and Jacqueline Patricia Sword-Olson of Sacramento, California; a son, Christopher Martin Sword of Benbrook, Texas; and two grandsons.
She was preceded in death by her husband and a brother.
Memorials may be made to Covenant House at https://www.covenanthouse.org/ or a charity of one’s choice. To offer online notes of condolence to the Sword Family, visit http://rudesfuneralhome.com.
