Tower Topics ~ Summer 2005

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Holy Week icon Grace Reardon dies

The final link to a Conception Abbey institution was lost January 12th when Grace Reardon, 96, died. For two decades, Grace and her sister Helen, who died in 2003, were a fixture of Holy Week at Conception Abbey.

So reliable were their Holy Week visits, Brother Blaise Bonderer in a 2001 Tower Topics article compared them to the women at the tomb.

“They are Conception Abbey’s own witnesses to the Resurrection,” he said. “Every time I see them arrive for Holy Week services, I say, ‘OK, we can have Easter now. The Reardon girls are here.’”

The Reardon sisters, who lived in Kansas City, grew up on a farm a few miles from the abbey. They were baptized, received first Communion and were confirmed in the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception.

Dressed impeccably, sitting in the front pew, the attractive sisters were, in the words of Father Benedict Neenan, “the most elegant, refined women you will ever meet.”

“The quintessential ladies,” Brother Blaise said.

Grace and Helen Reardon are buried in St. Columba cemetery, across from the abbey.

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