Community and relationships make the difference in people’s lives, she says
By Nancy Barthel | For On Mission
Even now, Franciscan Sr. Joanne Goessl wonders where she got her spunk at age 11.
“I never went to a Catholic school,” she said.
All Saints Parish in Denmark didn’t have one. Now 86, Sr. Joanne said she was faithful to the religious education classes taught on Saturdays by Fr. Chester Dionne and the religious training her parents provided at home.
”It was the Korean War at the time,” Sr. Joanne said. When the war broke out on June 25, 1950, the church was a half block away from her family’s home.
“We would congregate (there) and say the rosary,” she said.
“The priest would lead the rosary,” she said. If he wasn’t there, “this little 10- or 11-year-old kid,” she said, referring to herself, “would get up and lead the rosary.”
“There was something calling (me at that time),” Sr. Joanne said.
She has fond childhood memories.
“I was born in the house that we lived in,” she said. “I was welcomed by my sister (Jeanette), who was 10 years old, and my brother (Bob), who was five years old.”
She is the daughter of the late Ed and Clara (Duckart) Goessl.
“Every summer, (the Sisters of St. Francis of the Holy Cross in Bay Settlement) would come to our church for two or three weeks,” Sr. Joanne said.
She came to admire the sisters, especially Sr. Theophane. By eighth grade, Sr. Joanne knew she wanted to be a sister.
That same year, the Bay Settlement Sisters opened St. Francis Preparatory Novitiate at the Chapel in Robinsonville (now the Shrine of Our Lady of Champion).
She left home in September 1953 and attended high school in Robinsonville. It was a hard parting for her parents, especially since her brother, Bob, had already left for the Army.
Sr. Joanne was received as a novice in 1955, making this year her 70th anniversary in religious life. Sr. Joanne is the longest tenured sister celebrating a jubilee in the Diocese of Green Bay in 2025.
But as she points out, she is not retired.
At the Bay Settlement Motherhouse, “I’m the facilitator of community life,” Sr. Joanne said.
Sr. Joanne holds a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from St. Norbert College in De Pere and a master’s degree in religious education from St. Louis University in Missouri. She also did post-graduate work in Christian spirituality at Creighton University in Nebraska.
Sr. Joanne brought a strong compassion for people to every ministry she held over the past 70 years.
“I like to meet different people,” she said in her biography at gbfranciscans.org. “Forever I will sing the goodness of God revealed to me in my (Franciscan) community, my family and all the persons over these 70 years who have inspired me to live for God alone.”
For 10 years, she was a classroom teacher in Howard, Green Bay and Marinette.
“I was trained to be a teacher, so I went into teaching, which I loved,” she said.
Eventually, she became director of religious education at Nativity of Our Lord Parish in Ashwaubenon, followed by positions in Combined Locks, Pine Grove, and Denmark for a total of 10 years.
Later, Sr. Joanne changed careers when she had an opportunity to become a pastoral minister.
“The teaching part of me has always stayed,” she said, but pastoral ministry “means I’m working with people of all ages. I’m working with people who are coming to have their babies baptized, the engaged people, the people who are coming into the church, people in nursing homes, the homebound. I loved that because I loved the elderly. It was a perfect fit, and I was ready for it.”
In 1981, she became a pastoral associate in Mishicot, where she served for 10 years. She then served 30 years as a pastoral associate at St. Mary Parish in Appleton.
“For a greater number of years as pastoral associate, my creativity focused on developing community in the parish,” Sr. Joanne said.
“It was natural to form community,” she said. “I also believe that living in community as a sister, you realize what it is to bring people in who have different views… We are not all alike.”
But, through community, “the best was brought out in each person,” she said. “It was relationships that made a difference in people’s lives.”
At St. Mary Parish, Sr. Joanne said the greatest joy was settling 11 refugee families. She credits St. Mary Parish volunteers “who helped resettle these families and continue to be their support.”
“I always say that God’s grace took us through all of that, and I see God’s grace as God’s presence with us, helping us go beyond what we would say, be or do on our own,” she said.
Sr. Joanne said she remains friends with former refugee families, especially one family that resettled from the Republic of the Congo in January 2018.
“They fled into Uganda and spent about six years there in a refugee camp before coming to the United States,” Sr. Joanne said. “They did not come all at one time. At first, three of the family members arrived; then one or two more until they were all here. One daughter and her family are still waiting to join the family in Appleton.”
“Today, all of the family are American citizens,” she said. “All three sons are employed. Two of the men have master’s degrees from Oshkosh and are employed by the public school system. The three young girls are doing well in the Xavier school system.”
Conversations with Sr. Joanne are sprinkled with stories old and new and always highlight the people she met, the experiences she shared with them and the friendships that endure.
Sr. Joanne is famous for her Christmastime caramel corn. She enjoys sharing a meal with her Franciscan community as well as friends and family. She loves to read and learn new things. Books, she said, are her “constant companion.”
Sr. Joanne enjoys the community that is created when the public attends Silence & Sunset evenings hosted at the Bay Settlement Motherhouse. The next dates are Thursdays, Aug. 7 and Sept. 11.
“We also have a neighborhood picnic,” she said. The picnic includes 23 families from the neighborhood. “Again, it’s to build community among them (the neighbors) and then with us and us with them.”
“God has pulled a string through that community, and (it) has been a strong part of my life, with God’s grace,” Sr. Joanne said.
What is her secret to building community and living a fulfilled life?
“I think the whole thing is listening,” she said. “It’s like the neighborhood picnic we have here,” Sr. Joanne said. “You get to know people, and I love that. One couple, after last year’s neighborhood picnic, went on vacation, and they sent a card back to us. That was the highlight; that they felt that we would want to know and care and be happy with them.”
To view all 2025 Sister Jubilarian profiles, click here: https://onmiss.io/sisterjubilees2025