Mercy Sister Eleanora Holdgrafer, 93, died April 24.

Born in Iowa, she graduated from high school and worked for five years as a registered nurse before entering the Sisters of Mercy in 1949 in Des Plaines.

She went on to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing and a master’s degree in health administration.

She served as a nurse at Mercy Hospital (1952-1955) and other hospitals in Illinois and Iowa before becoming a hospital administrator. In 1974, she became a family nurse practitioner and provided health care in eight counties in central Iowa through the Iowa State Department of Health.

She moved to Chicago in 2001 and to Mercy Circle in 2014.

Mercy Sister Dorothy Burns, 84, died April 27.

Born in Chicago, she attended St. Tarcissus School and St. Patrick Academy, Des Plaines, graduating in 1951. She entered the Sisters of Mercy in 1954 in Des Plaines. 

While working toward her bachelor’s degree in education at Saint Xavier University, she taught at Queen of Martyrs, Evergreen Park, and Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

After earning a master’s degree in business in 1966, she quickly worked her way up in the health care world, filling a variety of roles in Mercy institutions in Aurora, Illinois, before serving for four years as vice president at Mercy Hospital and Medical Center in Chicago. 

She returned to Mercy Medical Center in Aurora as chief operating officer in 1988 and eventually became president and chief executive officer.

Jesuit Father Francis P. Chamberlain, 81, a priest from Chicago who served in Peru for most of his life, died April 29. 

Born in Chicago, Father Chamberlain graduated from Loyola Academy, Wilmette, before entering the Society of Jesus in 1955. In 1962, he moved to Peru and lived there for the rest of his life. He was ordained a priest in 1968 and became an official member of the Peru Province of the Society of Jesus in 1985. 

During his ministry, Father Chamberlain was involved in efforts to help those affected by the Shining Path in the 1980s and 1990s. He was involved with the Matteo Ricci House, a place where 26 groups who came to the capital city to avoid the war in the 1980s and 1990s meet once a week to get the reparations they need for having to leave everything they had to save their families from the killing.

Sister of Charity of Cincinnati Jeanine Marie Holthouse, 85, died May 2 in Ohio.

She was born in Ohio and grew up in Indiana. She joined the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati after graduating from the College of Mount St. Joseph in 1954.

Sister Jeanine Marie’s ministries brought her to Michigan, Colorado, Illinois and Ohio. In the Archdiocese of Chicago, she taught math (1969-1970) and then served in administration (1970-1982) at Elizabeth Seton High School, South Holland.

Jesuit Father Robert J. Ochs, 88, died May 4.

Born in Kansas, he moved to Chicago and finished high school at Loyola Academy, Wilmette. He graduated from Loyola University Chicago in 1951 before entering the Society of Jesus in 1952. He was ordained in 1961 in Innsbruck, Austria, and pronounced final vows in 1972 in Chicago.

Father Ochs was best known for his two books “The Death in Every Now” (1969) and “God is More Present Than You Think” (1970), as well as serving as an adjunct professor of theology at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. 

Father Ochs worked as a researcher and writer from 1981 until he moved to Colombiere Center in December 2017 to care for his health.