Sister Laurie Hoegle was a Duquesne University-educated teacher who practiced her trade for 61 years, but her peers remembered her Sunday for her constant smile, warmth and sparkling blue eyes. "I thought she was the most wonderful person I ever met," said Sister Joan Albaugh, 72, whom Hoegle taught as a third-grader in Ohio in 1943. "She was gentle, kind. I don't remember her ever raising her voice." Sister Laurie Hoegle of Allison Park, a member of the Sisters of Divine Providence, died Friday, April 4, 2008. She was 89. She was born Anselma Hoegle and entered religious life from St. Martin Parish, West End, in 1934. She began teaching in Glassport in 1937 and retired in Castle Shannon seven decades later. During that time, she taught students in at least six local schools: St. Cecelia in Glassport, Immaculate Conception in Johnstown, St. Alphonsus in Springdale, St. Anne in Castle Shannon, St. Mary in Sharpsburg and St. Margaret in Green Tree. "Wherever she was needed, she went. And I'm sure she didn't argue," Albaugh said. During the summer months, she tended to the sick or did craft work at a camp near Boston, Sister Doris Kretzler said. She retired from active ministry in 2001 but continued volunteering in the sisters' dining room. "She was a very generous person and did a lot of ministry," Kretzler said. "She was very private but always ready to be there if something was needed." An avid card player who received a master's degree in education from Duquesne University, Sister Hoegle lived a simple and orderly life and was not taken with material possessions, Albaugh said. Her room at Sisters of Divine Providence was spare and uncluttered. Sister Hoegle often was the first one in the chapel for morning prayers. She also made letter-writing part of her ministry, including keeping in touch with a lonely woman whose husband had died, Albaugh said. "She was a remarkable lady, really she was," Albaugh said. Sister Hoegle was preceded in death by two sisters, Agnes Mooney and Catherine Kelly, and two brothers, George and Theodore Hoegle. Survivors include nieces, nephews, grandnieces, grandnephews and 1,000 Sisters of Divine Providence and associates throughout the world. Friends will be received from noon to 3:30 p.m. today at Providence Heights in McCandless. Memorials may be made to the Sisters of Divine Providence Ministry Fund, 9000 Babcock Blvd., Allison Park, PA 15101, www.divineprovidenceweb.org.

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