August 21, 1917 – June 27, 2000
Sister Marguerite (Annie) Deibert, 82, died on June 27, 2000, at St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center, Lewiston, from injuries sustained in a one-car accident eight days earlier.
Born August 21, 1917, in Beulah, ND, to Joseph and Marianna Goldade Deibert, she entered the Monastery of St. Gertrude, Cottonwood, ID in 1935. She was professed there as a Benedictine sister on April 6, 1937. During her 63 years as a sister, she expressed her creativity, commitment, and joy in a great variety of services.
These included cooking, baking, and homemaking at the monastery. She took great pride in the countless loaves of bread and rolls she baked for the community with its many guests and retreatants and for special events in the local area. The warmth and graciousness she so naturally wove into her culinary and housekeeping work at Our Lady of Consolation Hospital in Cottonwood, St. Paul’s School in Nampa, St. Martin’s College in Lacey, WA, St. Benedict’s Hospital, Jerome, and St. Mary’s School, Boise made these places “homes” for those she served. She showed the same hospitality with the girls who boarded at the monastery to attend St. Gertrude’s Academy, and as she assisted Sister Sylveria Weiand in managing Hays House, a Boise shelter home for status offense teenage girls sponsored by the Youth Service Bureau.
Sister Deibert brought joy to many people during her last years at the monastery where she welcomed guests and retreatants with humility and humor and spent most of her time creating unique handwork, quilts, and other crafts to sell in The Turnstile gift shop at the monastery. She will be remembered for her zest for life, her deep faith in God’s goodness, and her eagerness to help others. Every day of good weather was a temptation to head for the river or lake to bring home enough “souvenirs” for a fish fry. She loved music and dancing and for ten years taught accordion lessons.
Her parents and her brothers Steve, Peter, Joseph, Beatus, and Leo and her sisters Kathryn and Eugenia, preceded Sister Deibert in death. She is survived by many nieces and nephews.
A Vigil Service was held in the monastery chapel at 7:30 p.m., June 30, and the Mass of Christian Burial on July 1 at 1:00 p.m. Rev. Meinrad Schallberger, OSB, Chaplain at the Monastery, presided at the Eucharist and Prioress Jean Lalande, OSB, gave the reflections. Sister Deibert was buried in the monastery cemetery.