Ossining, N.Y., Oct. 27, 2026 ── Sister Muriel Gallant, M.M., a Maryknoll Sister of 80 years known for her spontaneity and sense of adventure, died on Oct. 6, 2026. She was 102.
Sr. Muriel was born on July 20, 1924, in Van Buren, Maine, to Charles Boyd and Lucinda Hagan Gallant. She was the third of eight children, predeceased by two brothers — Gerald and Edwin — sisters Mary and Dorothy, as well as a third sister who died in infancy. She is survived by her brother Francis and his wife, Ellin, her sister Teresa, as well as several nieces, nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews.
In 1942, Sr. Muriel graduated from Deering High School, in Portland, Maine. She then worked as a machinist for two years in a factory making propeller parts, doing her part in the war effort. For the next two years, Sr. Muriel worked at the New England Telephone Company, where she connected soldiers arriving to port with their families all over the United States.
Sr. Muriel entered the Maryknoll Sisters from St. Joseph’s Parish in Portland, Maine, on Oct. 6, 1946. She made her First Vows on April 6, 1949. That year, she received her first mission assignment to Panama, where she made her Final Vows on April 6, 1952.
In Panama City, Sr. Muriel taught primary and secondary levels at the Colegio San Vincente through 1967, returning to the United States between 1959 and 1962 to complete a bachelor’s degree in education from the Maryknoll Teachers College at Maryknoll, N.Y.
Sr. Muriel then served in Guatemala from 1968 until 1979, where she taught at Colegio Monte Maria in Guatemala City. During this time, she was called back to the United States to take a course in office management at Cornell University in New York City, before serving as supervisor of the data processing office in development at the Maryknoll Sisters Center. She would work there from 1969 to 1972, and again from 1974 to 1979.
From 1979 until 1984, Sr. Muriel returned to Maine for family ministry, caring for her parents. In preparation, she became certified in geriatric nurse assistance and cardiopulmonary resuscitation and was certified as a nurse assistant in geriatric pharmacology at Westbrook College in 1982. Over the next year, Sr. Muriel completed three units of clinical pastoral education at the Maine Correctional Facility and served there for one year as chaplain. She returned to the Center in 1984, bringing these skills with her to serve in the long-term care facility for the next five years and training to be a nurse assistant rehab specialist.
Sr. Muriel began her next assignment in 1989, working as a librarian and teacher of library science at St. Gregory the Great Parish School in New York City, N.Y. She then joined the Maryknoll Sisters house in Monrovia, Calif., where she assisted the community as a driver, and took pride in planting and caring for rose bushes on the grounds alongside her brother, Francis.
In 2003, Sr. Muriel returned to the Center, where she enjoyed serving her Sister community in her retirement, providing hair care and driving Sisters whenever needed.
The Maryknoll Sisters would like to thank Sr. Muriel for her many decades of loving and dedicated service to the One Earth Community. They also extend thanks to her niece, Elise Ellison Macdonald, who assisted Sr. Muriel in the writing and publishing of her autobiography, “A Life of Faith.”
A wake and Mass of Christian Burial were held for Sr. Muriel on Oct. 22, 2026, in the Annunciation Chapel of the Maryknoll Sisters Center in Ossining, N.Y.