Sister Mary Thomasita Shonebarger, a sister of Notre Dame who taught and supervised in 16 area Catholic schools for about 50 years and could quote long sections of the old English epic Beowulf and Shakespeare, died Friday in the sisters health care center.

She was 74 and had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in the mid-1990s, said Sister Patricia Snyder, who had taught with Sister Thomasita for decades.

Sister Thomasita joined the order in September, 1945, after graduating from Notre Dame Academy. Notre Dame sisters had taught her elementary classes in the former St. Ann's School - now St. Martin de Porres - in central Toledo as well as her high school classes.

After two years at the former Mary Manse College in Toledo's Old West End, she started teaching in area elementary schools in 1947 as was common then for sisters who typically finished their bachelor's degrees as part-time students. She finished her degree in 1961, with a major in education and minor in English.

She started teaching first and second grades at a time when there were often 40 to 50 pupils per classroom in area Catholic schools, Sister Patricia said.

She taught at Immaculate Conception in Bellevue (1947-48), St. Paul in Norwalk (1948-49), St. Mary in Toledo (1949-50), St. Wendelin in Fostoria (1950-52), Ladyfield in Toledo (1952-53), St. Michael in Toledo and St. Mary in Leipsic (1953-54), St. Ann in Toledo (1954-56), and St. Joseph in Fremont (1956-58).

Her first position as principal was at St. Mary in Norwalk (1958-60). She returned to teaching at Christ the King in Toledo (1960-61), Gesu in Toledo (1961-64), and St. John in Delphos in the fall of 1964. The second semester of the 1964-65 school year she taught high school at St. John and continued with high school classes at St. Mary in Sandusky 1965-69 and Notre Dame Academy in Toledo 1969-70.

She was principal at Gesu from 1970 to 1974, associate principal at Notre Dame from 1974 to 1976, principal at St. Joseph from 1976 to 1980 and at Christ the King from 1980 to 1986.

She taught English at Notre Dame and lived on the academy's upper floor from 1986 to 1996. She had received a master's degree in English from the University of Detroit in 1965. She had learned the old English accent and tried to bring Shakespeare and Beowulf alive for her students.

She once told a group of seventh graders, “The only C I got was in conduct, when I was in the seventh grade,” according to papers she saved.

Sister Thomasita retired in 1996 and lived at the Lial Convent & Renewal Center near Whitehouse for a few years before moving to the health care center.

She grew up on Albion Street, in the Auburndale neighborhood, just west of the Old West End. She was born Mary Ann, the sixth of eight children of George Shonebarger, a painting contractor, and his wife, Dorothy. Two of her older siblings died as infants.

She was a sales clerk at Tiedtke's, the former downtown department store, the summers of 1943 and 1944, when she was 16 and 17. In 1945 she was a secretary at Bostwick-Braun Co.

There are no immediate survivors.

Visitation will be in the Provincial Center from 4 to 9 p.m. today and 2 to 9 p.m. tomorrow with wake services at 7:30 p.m. both days. The funeral will be at 5 p.m. Monday in the Provincial Center chapel and a burial service will be at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday in Resurrection Cemetery. Abele Funeral Home is handling arrangements.

Tributes are to the Sisters of Notre Dame.

First Published September 2, 2001, 4:00 a.m.