Sister Cassian Peters

ST. JOSEPH, Minn. — Benedictine Sister Cassian (Florence) Peters, 85, died peacefully at Saint Benedict’s Senior Community Oct. 18.

Sr. Cassian was born to Nicholas and Josephine Moeller Peters in Cold Spring, Minn. Her father died when she was 3 years old. Her mother nurtured her children’s faith and attitudes. At St. Boniface Grade and High Schools, the seeds of Sr. Cassian’s religious vocation were planted by her admiration for the Benedictine sisters’ simple lifestyle and commitment to prayer. She graduated from St. Boniface High School in 1940, and went to Saint Benedict’s Monastery Sept. 15. On July 2, 1941, she entered the novitiate. Her monastic profession was July 11, 1942. Three years later she made her perpetual profession. Her Golden Jubilee was in 1992, and her 60th anniversary was in 2002. They were events of deep significance and happy occasions.

Sr. Cassian attended the College of Saint Benedict for a year, went to St. Alexius Hospital School of Nursing, in Bismarck, N.D., and graduated from St. Cloud Hospital School of Nursing. She earned a B.S. degree from The Catholic University, Washington, D. C., in 1948, and an M.Ed. degree from the University of Minnesota in 1956.

Sr. Cassian supervised a medical floor and taught in the nursing school at St. Benedict’s Hospital in Ogden for six years. She returned to Utah in 1963 to become the director of the School of Nursing at Saint Benedict’s Hospital and chairwoman of the Utah Board of Nursing. When the school closed in 1968, she taught at Weber State College in Ogden for four years, and stayed on as a staff nurse for three years. She then moved to Salt Lake City and taught at Westminster College. She was appointed director of the Baccalaureate Nursing Program in 1978 and returned to Minnesota in 1979, where she continued in nursing until her retirement in 2005.

She is survived by members of her Benedictine community; nieces and nephews; brother-in-law, Don Kolb; two brothers, Benedictine Father Marcian [Ambrose], and Edward.