Sister Mary Carmen Deschapelles, an Oblate Sister of Providence and retired parochial school educator, died Dec. 29 of heart failure at Future Care Nursing Home at North Point. She was 86.
Caridad Maria Deschapelles Cassio was born and raised in Cardenas, Cuba. She was a graduate of St. Jose High School in Cardenas and earned a bachelor's degree from Cardenas Institute.
She entered the Oblate Sisters of Providence in 1944 and professed her vows in 1947, taking the name Sister Mary Carmen.
"Sister remained faithful to her calling as an Oblate Sister of Providence for 66 years," said Sister Celestina Johnson, a longtime friend and Oblate Sister.
From 1947 until the Cuban revolution, Sister Mary Carmen taught in Cuban parochial schools. In 1961, she left her homeland and joined the faculty of St. Peter Claver School in St. Paul, Minn.
In 1965, Sister Mary Carmen joined the faculty of Cardinal Gibbons High School in Ridge, St. Mary's County, where she taught for two years.
From 1967 to 1972, when she began teaching at Sts. Phillip and James Parochial School in Baltimore, she held teaching assignments in Aiken, S.C., St. Louis and New Orleans.
Sister Mary Carmen taught in parochial schools in Orangeburg, S.C., and Charleston, S.C., for a decade before joining her order's Mount Providence Reading and Math Center in Catonsville in 1984.
She retired from the center in 2009 and resided at her order's Gun Road motherhouse in Catonsville.
Sister Mary Carmen was an accomplished embroiderer and enjoyed reading.
"She always had a lovely smile and a laugh came easily to her," said Sister Celestina.
A Mass of Christian burial was offered Wednesday at the Mount Providence Convent Chapel.
She is survived by a sister, Isabel Deschapelles of Cardenas; and many nieces and cousins.