05/23/2026
In Loving Memory
Sister Alice Zachmann
Sister Alice Zachmann, 100, died April 9, 2026, at Benedictine Living Community in Shakopee, Minnesota. It was her hope to reach her 100th birthday, and she achieved this goal just 11 days before her death. She requested a green burial, which was held Monday, April 13.
The third of seven children, a daughter named Alice Kathryn, was born to Bernadine and Benno Zachmann on the family farm near St. Michael, Minnesota, on March 29, 1926. Her earliest memory was the birth of her brother, Carl, on her fourth birthday. She loved the farm and “preferred milking cows, mowing hay, threshing grain and cleaning barns” to cooking or sewing.
In 1932, Alice entered first grade at St. Michael Catholic School in St. Michael, where she was taught by School Sisters of Notre Dame (SSND). She graduated from eighth grade in 1940 and, “though I wanted to become a sister, or even better, a priest, I was needed on the farm,” she stayed home for two years. When she finally asked to join SSND, her dad blessed her desire, “If that is what you feel you want to do, then do it.”
In 1942, Alice enrolled at Good Counsel Academy in Mankato, Minnesota. During her senior year, her mother was hospitalized and Alice returned home to care for her younger siblings. She returned to Good Counsel Academy in June 1946 and finished high school privately before entering the SSND candidature. At her reception into the novitiate in 1948, she was given her father’s name, Mary Benno. Following profession in 1949, she began a 24-year ministry as a primary grade teacher and administrator in Catholic schools. She served at St. Francis, Buffalo; St. Stanislaus and Sacred Heart, St. Paul; St. Albert, Albertville; St. Nicholas, New Market; St. Philip and SS. Cyril and Methodius, both in Minneapolis; and Assumption, Cresco, Iowa. From 1970 through 1974, she was the principal and primary grade teacher at Project Discovery, a St. Paul inner-city school consolidation that included St Stanislaus School.
Sister Alice left teaching in 1974 to help found the West Seventh Family Center, a program “to help parents, particularly mothers and children, solve family problems and enable single parents with better parenting skills.” In 1976, she returned to St. Stanislaus as a pastoral associate. During this time, she became actively involved in social justice issues. “Disturbed by the plight of California farm workers [who were] denied the right to form a union or earn even a minimum wage, I joined protests targeting Gallo Wine. Another sister, four others and I were arrested. We were the first sisters ever arrested in St. Paul. We elected to take jail time and were greatly distressed when the $50 fine for each of us was paid anonymously.”
In 1975, Sister Alice visited the SSND mission in San Lucas Toliman, Guatemala. “Thus began a major change in my life. I was smitten by the Holy Spirit and Guatemala at the same time; by the beauty of the people and the country but absolutely appalled by the extreme poverty. I could not forget Guatemala.” This experience disturbed her to the point that she left her ministry at St. Stanislaus “with great pain. Entering into a 30-day retreat I prayed for direction and guidance. The call was clear: I was to work for justice and peace on behalf of the poor, as mandated by our SSND constitution. But I did not know where this was to be. The strongest memory of this retreat were the words of Scripture, ‘Be not afraid, I go before you always.’ These words became my mantra.”
Toward the end of her retreat, Sister Alice received a letter from former lay missionaries and Guatemalans asking that she come to Washington, D.C. “to begin dialogue about starting a human rights organization on behalf of Guatemala, based not in Guatemala, but in Washington, D.C.” where the organization could “educate people in the United States about the horrific human rights violations in Guatemala and work to end U.S. military aid to Guatemala; to end the atrocities, the destruction of villages, the killings, the massacres, torture and disappearances.” Sister Alice founded the Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA (GHRC) and began to research, document and report human rights violations happening in Guatemala. She traveled throughout the United States, speaking at universities and conferences. She organized delegations to travel to Guatemala and speaking tours for torture survivors.
While living in the Washington D.C. area, “making the concerns of the poor her own” also defined her life in community. For many years, she “lived in community with like-minded friends who shared their home, meals and prayer with refugee women and their children.”
Sister Alice retired as director of GHRC in 2002 and turned her attention to torture and torture survivors. For eight years she served on the staff at Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International (TASSC). “I listened to as many as a thousand survivors’ testimonies during my eight years at TASSC. One cannot imagine what torture does to the human psyche; torture never ceases in the lives of the tortured.”
In 2010, Sister Alice retired and moved to Our Lady of Good Counsel, Mankato, Minnesota. “I needed to be healed from all the pain I had listened to and washed clean of the deep shame I felt because our country was so involved in torture.” She did not retire from her advocacy for justice, however, and joined her friend, Sister Gladys Schmitz, in the weekly silent protests for justice in downtown Mankato. She traveled with “Nuns on the Bus,” promoting voting, and she continued to speak out about torture to local groups. In 2015, Tim Walz, then a U.S. Representative from Minnesota, invited her to be his guest of honor when Pope Francis addressed a Joint Session of Congress. In 2022, Sister Alice moved with other SSND to Shakopee, where she continued to engage in digital communications for justice. GHRC continued to honor her legacy, and representatives of the group visited her on both her 99th and 100th birthdays.
Sister Alice concluded in an autobiography, “I can never thank God enough for the blessings I have received during my life and for the support of my community over these many years. I am so grateful to be a member of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, because it is through this community that I have been able to live a faith-filled life enriched with wonderful experiences. We as a community have been called to work against oppression, to work with immigrants and among the poor, to follow Jesus in his ministry doing the same. The task demands courage, trust and faithfulness, but Jesus said, ‘Be not afraid.’” She also expressed her gratitude to her family members “who have been a faithful support through these many years.”
A Memorial Mass was held May 18, in the Windermere Chapel, Shakopee, with Father Dale Korogi, a former student of Sister Alice, as presider. Sharing of memories preceded the Mass. Sister Alice is survived by her sisters in community, the School Sisters of Notre Dame and SSND associates, and nieces and nephews and their families. She was preceded in death by her parents Benno and Bernadine (Wey) Zachmann, her sister, Lauretta Hartmann, and her brothers; Tony, Carl, Frank, Harry and Paul.
By Sister Mary Kay Ash, SSND
“Precious and blessed is the death of the faithful before God … for they die in union with their dear Jesus, in the grace of God, in peace.”
— Blessed Theresa of Jesus Gerhardinger, Foundress of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, Letter 11, September 10, 1831
