Sr. M. Angelita Zawada, Osu

Sister M. Angelita Zawada was principal of three schools and later president of the Ursuline Sisters of Cleveland.

The elected leader of 184 nuns died Thursday, Sept. 15, 2011 at the Ursulines’ Saint Angela Center from complications of lymphoma. She was 68.

“Sister Angelita will be remembered for her love of community, her kindness and exuberance, and her never-wavering hope and optimism,” said Sister Maureen Grady, interim president until elections in March.

She was born Linda Zawada and raised in the St. Francis de Sales parish of Parma. She graduated from St. Joseph Academy and entered the Ursulines at 17.

She was named Angelita for the order’s founder, St. Angela Merici. She took final vows eight years later.

Sister M. Angelita Zawada earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at St. John College and studied at three other schools. She taught at St. Paul Catholic School in Euclid and St. Mary Magdalene in Willowick, then became principal in turn of Our Lady of Peace in Cleveland, St. Therese in Garfield Heights and St. Charles Borromeo in Parma.

In 1996, her peers chose her as a general councilor of the local order. She was elected president in 2004 and again in 2008.

She founded the Ursuline Institute of Learning, a tutoring ministry at several locations. She started a study of the orders’ future. She also served on the boards of Padua Franciscan High School, Benedictine High School and three schools sponsored by her order: Ursuline College, Beaumont School and Urban Community School.

The Mass of Christian Burial will be at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2011 at the Chapel of the Most Holy Trinity on the Ursulines’ campus at Fairmount Boulevard and Lander Road.

Her survivors include two brothers.