MARIA STEIN—With a bright sun overhead, more than 500 people —including many from the Diocese of Toledo — filled the grounds of the Maria Stein Center in Mercer County Aug. 16. The occasion was a Mass and picnic to help the Sisters of the Precious Blood celebrate their 175th anniversary at this historic site.

Donald Recker, three months, finds a comfortable place to take a nap during the Aug. 16 outdoor Mass at Maria Stein Center: the arms of older brother, Herman, 11. The entire Recker family — Mom, Dad and seven children — were among more than 500 people who attended the Mass and picnic at this historic Mercer County location to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the founding of the Sisters of the Precious Blood. The Reckers, from New Cleveland, are relatives of Precious Blood Sister Nancy Recker. (Photo courtesy of Pat Morrison/ Sisters of the Precious Blood)

Among those attending the event for the day were the Recker family of New Cleveland: Joe and Connie with their seven children: Ralph, Herman, Robert, Mildred, Eugene, Irene and Donald. Mr. Recker is the nephew of Precious Blood Sister Nancy Recker, who ministers with the infirm and elderly sisters at the congregation’s health-care facility in Dayton.

The Sisters of the Precious Blood have a long connection with the Toledo Diocese. Their first Ohio location, on arriving in the United States in 1844, was in Peru, Ohio. Shortly thereafter, they settled in New Riegel to assist the German immigrant population and there staffed a school and orphanage, and later also a cloistered convent, until the 1970s.

Precious Blood Sisters continue to minister in the Toledo Diocese, in diocesan and pastoral ministry, as directors of religious education, as high school and college teachers and in volunteer ministry among the elderly and homebound in parishes.

Upcoming events in the yearlong 175th celebration in Ohio are a lecture Oct. 3, by Precious Blood Father Barry Fischer and a public Mass of Thanksgiving Oct. 4, with Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk at Precious Blood Church in Dayton. More information is available at www.PreciousBloodSistersDayton.org; click on News & Events.