Born in Aurora, Illinois, in 1930, Sister Donna was the second child of Elizabeth and Joseph Weiss. They were poor, her father having lost his job due to the Depression, and her mother helped out by taking in washing and ironing, and cleaning peoples' houses.

Donna only had two brothers; twin girls died at birth. Her mother had wanted nine children, enough for a baseball team, but that wasn't to happen. Having few girls in the relationship and neighborhood, she often begged her parents to adopt a girl for her. They were wary for a long time, and when they finally did consider it, they were told they were too old.

Two sets of cousins lived on farms, and Donna and her brothers often begged their dad to buy a farm. His reply was that he didn't know anything about farming. Silly children that they were, they thought anyone could farm!

Sister Donna had School Sisters of St. Francis as teachers in grade school and also at Madonna High School. She loved school and loved the sisters. Her mother used to say Donna would do anything for the sisters, even scrub the floor. After a visit to the Motherhouse, she decided to join her teachers. God had his own way of giving her sisters!

Educated to be a teacher, she began that career in New York City with her own first grade teacher, Sister Mariangela Higgins. When they planned their lessons, Sister Mariangela would say, "Don't you remember that song? I taught that to you in first grade." After nine years in New York, she was sent to Carol Stream, Illinois, and then Frankenstein, Missouri. The pastor and principal there were notified early in the year that one sister would have to be replaced by a lay teacher, and it was taken for granted that "anyone" could teach the first three grades, so Donna was the one to go. The remainder of her teaching years were in the state of Illinois.

When it became evident that her parents needed more help, she quit teaching and took a secretarial position in a monastery in Aurora, to have more time for them. After they died, Sister Donna was asked to go to St. Joseph Convent in Campbellsport to organize a human resource department. So what did she know about human resources? Nothing! But she went, and learned on the job for eight years. Then she became Sister Dorothy McKeague's assistant for eight more years, tending to the personal needs of the sisters. With bad knees needing repair, she retired and moved into the convent where she had been serving. It was a joy to be received by the sisters whom she had assisted for 16 years, and to be truly a sister to them by continuing to minister through volunteering.

Looking back, it seems that much of her earlier life was preparing her for her final ministry, on moving back to the Motherhouse, and volunteering at Sacred Heart Center. Missing her blood sisters, Rita and Ruth, made her ready to adopt all the School Sisters of St. Francis as kin, to love them through her services. Now she joins all of them in God's big family. What a family reunion it will be!