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Sister Mary Elizabeth Fortin, M.M., a missioner to the Philippines for more than 40 years, died Aug. 18 at Phelps Memorial Hospital, Sleepy Hollow. She was 96.
In 1947, she began her service in the Philippines at Maryknoll College, Manila, where she taught on the high school and college levels before serving as the high school principal, 1958-1961. She returned to teach there, 1968-1970.
She was appointed director of a school in Jimenez in 1961, and she taught religion on the college level to teachers-in-training until 1966. She taught at Maryknoll Secondary School in Hong Kong, 1967-1968.
She was appointed principal of Maryknoll High School in Pakil, Laguna, Philippines, 1970-1973. She was principal and an English teacher at Maryknoll High School, Cateel, before moving on to Davao City where she taught theology at a school of nursing, 1977-1979. She served in the counseling office at a medical school, 1979-1981, and as a liaison in a hospital program offering corrective surgery to handicapped children, 1981-1982. She was coordinator of a parish health program in Upi, Mindanao, serving there until 1989, when she was sent to El Salvador.
There she worked in local parishes from 1993 until she returned to the United States in 1999. She volunteered as an English literacy teacher in Waterbury, Conn., and also served at a local parish until 2002, when she retired.
Born in Hartford, Conn., she entered Maryknoll in 1943 and professed final vows in 1949. She held bachelor’s degree in mathematics from St. Joseph’s College, West Hartford, Conn., and a master’s in education from Ateneo University, the Philippines. She was formerly known as Sister Anne Marie.
A brother, John, survives her. A Funeral Mass was offered Aug. 23 at Annunciation Chapel at the Maryknoll Sisters Center. Burial was in the sisters’ cemetery at Maryknoll.
