Our Sister Cecile, daughter of Raoul Jubinville and Leoni Laroche, was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island on February 17, 1920 and was baptized Marie Ange Cecile on February 22 in St. Cecilia’s Church, Pawtucket. She had an older brother and a younger sister, her beloved Teresa who died recently, in addition to two other siblings who did not survive a terrible plague that swept the city one year. When she finished high school, she took a nursing course and worked as a practical nurse in a hospital for over three years followed by five years as a doctor’s technician. It was through meeting Cistercian monks at his office that she came to know about the nuns coming from Ireland to make a foundation in Wrentham.
On October 1, 1949, she was on the spot to welcome the sisters from Glencairn, and by November 25th of that year she had entered. Although she was not the first to enter she was the first postulant to persevere. She received the habit June 29, 1950 and was given her new name: Sr. Mary Benedict. She made Temporary Vows March 17, 1952, Final Vows March 17, 1955 and Solemn Vows June 28, 1957.
Sr. Cecile’s qualities of good judgment, reliability, perseverance and cheerful giving marked her out early on as one with whom the abbess could safely share her burdens. When we began our candy industry in 1956, she was called on to be in charge for a good number of years. The year she made Final Vows she was appointed the first American prioress, and she remained in that position until 1972 when she was named the superior of our foundation in Arizona. For eighteen years she built up the little community of Santa Rita Abbey both spiritually and materially with the crown of a beautiful chapel that welcomes the desert sunrise every morning.
In 1990 Sr. Cecile completed her ministry at Santa Rita and, much to our joy and delight, returned to Wrentham. The pattern of her older years has been exactly the same as the pattern of her younger years: she has given our community the most reliable, consistent and beautiful example possible of how to grow old gracefully, graciously, faithfully and cheerfully. So very appropriately, she died on the feast of the Holy Family surrounded by her religious family, all of us young and old so grateful for the blessing she was for our community.