Born: 11 December 1942
Professed: 24 August 1969
Died: 23 October 2025
Frances Margareta (Francie) was the much loved and only child of Norman and Margareta Remnant. She was born and baptized in Te Kuiti, a rural town in New Zealand. Faith and trust in God were central to their family life. Her parents were hard working and largely self-sufficient. Francie’s dad had her work alongside him. The 4 year old Francie could be seen hammering in nails with purpose. It was not long before she could change a car tyre, trouble
shoot engines, fix lawnmowers. Her parents both loved the garden. Francie alongside her mother bottled, preserved, made relish and jams from the fruit and vegetables as well as sewed and cleaned. Francie put this work ethic down to her Swiss-German heritage.
Where many of us see fruit, flowers and vegetables in the garden Francie saw echinacea, chamomille, kawakawa, ginger, lavender, koromiko and many more – all the healing properties of which she knew, used and shared.
It is little wonder that this woman went off to do nursing studies, complete her training and also graduate in midwifery. This multi-gifted, generous woman was willing to serve outside New Zealand as a missionary. She had read an SMSM vocation advertisement and she put her “hand to the plough” by answering God’s invitation to become a Missionary Sister of the Society of Mary.
She was professed in Heretaunga 24 August 1969 and thus began a remarkable life journey.
Her first assignment was to the Chatham Island Hospital, staffed by SMSM. She loved the isolation, medical challenges, dealing with things not in the job description and creatively finding solutions when supplies weren’t there. With so much on her mind and a certain compulsiveness she was often running late. However, the wellbeing of the patients was uppermost. No task was too big. She even played in the netball team when they were a player short. She welcomed the unexpected. It was there that she honed her weather reading skills. She could read the clouds, winds, tides, isobars. Wherever she was she planted her beloved gardens by the moon and Māori calendar.
Over the next 13 years she went back and forth between the Chathams and Twomey Hospital, Fiji, until she went to Jamaica in 1987 to nurse in a clinic in a small village. When you have someone so generous and willing to give of their talents, they make themselves available. We note that Francie was often asked to take up other ministries. In 1992 she responded generously to a call to nursing care of our elderly Sisters in Boston. After two years she went on ‘home leave’ to care for her sick and elderly parents.
As well as nursing, her other passion was a love for Church liturgy. She willingly shared her musical and singing talents. Francie never thought of herself as industrious, inventive, resilient and knowledgeable - but she was! Living a simple lifestyle she gave faith filled, tireless, loving service, attentive to details, organizing, categorizing, labelling.
In 2006 she set out again as a member of the pioneering community to Tanzania. She was not in a nursing position. She worked alongside the men digging drains for the new school shower block, making shelves and establishing a school library. She also was a member of the team that visited the sick and housebound, and, aware of the treasure of “our common home”, she constantly kept the property free of rubbish.
After five years Francie was asked to be the Nurse Co-ordinator for our Sisters in North America. This she did for the following five years before her final big adventure when she and Sr Maureen Connor responded to an invitation from Cardinal John Dew to go to Kaikoura in the South Island of New Zealand. The people had recently experienced a devastating 7.8 Earthquake and the parish was often without a priest. The wonderful community there, welcomed the Sisters into the Parish and School. It was here that five years later she was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. Frances Anna kept her mind busy doing her family genealogy and gardening. She showed no self-pity or self-preoccupation. For three years Francie with her faith, courage and practical “can do attitude” journeyed with Mary and in the last years waited to hear “Come”. She prepared her own liturgy to the last detail and involved many of the parishioners. She made numerous phone calls at this time to say thank you and goodbyes to SMSM and her cousins who were grateful to her for keeping in contact with them and uniting the families.
Two weeks before Sr Mary Frances Anna died she announced it was time to go into hospital. When she became very weak, Sr Maureen renewed her vows with her and said her favourite prayer - the “Memorare”. She passed away peacefully at Kaikoura Hospital early on the morning of 23 October 2023. Sr Maureen led a reflective Rosary Vigil on the evening of 27
October in the Sacred Heart Parish Church where on the following day there was the Requiem Mass. She is buried in the old cemetery in Kaikoura next to RNDM sisters who once worked in Kaikoura.
… our life is a continual experience of the faithfulness of God who inflames our hearts with the desire to be faithful in return. Constitution 267
Sr Pauline Gresham smsm
