Sister Rita, whose parents were born in the north of Ireland, loved Irish history and music. Hum a few bars of a song and she would continue by singing the words. She loved to sing and for many years was a member of the Fordham University choir for Sunday Mass.

Sister Rita McIvor, Sister Maria Immaculata, was born on March 4, 1931, in the Bronx, New York. She was one of three children, two girls and a boy of James and Susan McNamee McIvor. Rita attended Saint Anselm Elementary School in the Bronx and Cathedral High School in Manhattan and worked for one year before entering the Sisters of Charity of New York on September 8, 1949. Sister Immaculata received a BA in French from College (now University) of Mount Saint Vincent and an MA in Theology from Saint Bonaventure University in Saint Bonaventure, New York.

Sister Rita served for eighteen years as an elementary grade teacher and thirty years as an office assistant in a variety of responsibilities. Her teaching experience was in Saint Ignatius Loyola in Manhattan, Saint Mary in Wappingers Falls, Immaculate Conception in Stony Point, Resurrection in Rye, Saint Denis in Yonkers, and Saint Francis of Assisi in Mount Kisco. Her office experience was at Grace Institute and Saint Joseph Academy, both in Manhattan, and Saint Raymond Academy for Girls in the Bronx where she served as Business Manager for twenty-seven years.

When Sister Rita retired from active ministry in 2001, she offered volunteer services at the Sisters of Charity Center in the Bronx and the Center of Renewal and Education in Harriman, New York. She lived with the retirement community of Saint Patrick Villa in Nanuet and, later, Mount Saint Vincent Convent before moving to Cabrini of Westchester, Dobbs Ferry, in 2022. It is here she died on May 8, 2024, in the seventy-fifth year of commitment as a Sister of Charity of New York.

Sister Rita, whose parents were born in the north of Ireland, loved Irish history and music. Hum a few bars of a song and she would continue by singing the words. She loved to sing and for many years was a member of the Fordham University choir for Sunday Mass. Listening to music was a way to relax. As a friend said, “Music was inside her.” Sister Rita was very generous with her time and was often the first to respond to a need for help. For her, it was what community was about.

Sister Rita, you spoke of your death as “being called home”. The author of life is now calling you there. You will soon “grasp fully, with all the holy ones, the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ’s love . . .” (Eph 3:18). Life in God is yours without end and cannot be taken away. Pray for us.