Beloved nun will be honored posthumously with YWCA Women of Achievement lifetime achievement award

When the women receiving this year’s YWCA Women of Achievement awards gather for a luncheon today to honor their contributions, one award recipient will be missing. Sister Celine Steinberger, a longtime Catholic nun, will receive posthumously the lifetime achievement award. She died on Christmas Day last year.

She was nominated for the award by one of her longtime friends, Lorna St. John. “She is probably the most astonishingly, astoundingly and profoundly good person I’ve ever known,” she said. “She had touched so many people in the community.”

Steinberger grew up in Seattle and took her vows as a nun in 1962. She earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from the Fort Wright College of the Holy Names. She taught elementary school in Spokane, Tacoma and Seattle and was principal at the Holy Names Rosary School in Edmonds. She came to Spokane in 1981 to work at Fort Wright College before going to work at the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary Convent near Spokane Falls Community College.

She also loved her work with the Holy Names Music Center, St. John said. “That was a big important thing for her,” she said. “She really believed in the mission of beautiful music.”

St. John first came to know Steinberger through her niece, Chrissy Sharman, who worked for Steinberger. St. John and Steinberger became close friends when Sharman was dying of brain cancer. “She took care of all of us spiritually, even though I am not a believer,” St. John said. “She had lots of responsibilities at Holy Names Convent, but she put it all on hold for us.”

That was one of the key things about Steinberger, St. John said. It didn’t matter to her if the people she helped shared her faith, and she didn’t focus on preaching her faith. She preferred to show her faith through her actions, St. John said.

“We are not Catholic but she didn’t care,” she said. “She let her light and her work leap over that.”

Steinberger was known for her many friendships and was adept at using her personal relationships to help her raise money for various projects. She was a people person who liked to talk. She never learned how to drive and relied on friends and her fellow nuns for rides, but she never lacked for people willing to take her where she needed to go.

“She used that to her advantage because she got a lot of time with people,” St. John said. “It was always wonderful to have Celine around. Everybody that knew her loved her.”

She was also known for her personal notes and gifts for her many friends. The gifts were never expensive, but they were personal and somehow always what the recipients liked and appreciated, St. John said.

Steinberger got sick two weeks before she died on Christmas Day, but she already had notes and gifts prepared. “She had everything laid out and ready to go,” she said. “People got cards from her after she died.”

The last gift St. John received from her last Christmas was chocolate and cookies in an attractive box. “It took us a long time to eat them,” she said. “I still have the box because it was so beautiful.”

Steinberger was also known for her impeccable sense of style. “She was a very glamorous nun,” St. John said. “She had a lot of style about the way she dressed. She was always turned out, always, even though she was a thrift store shopper.”

She also loved to laugh and had a great sense of humor, St. John said. “She was very not what you think of as a nun,” she said. “She was extraordinary.”

St. John said she thinks Steinberger would have appreciated the lifetime achievement award. “I think she would have liked it,” she said. “She would have seen it as recognition of her life’s work.”

Steinberger was 75 when she died, and St. John said her loss was a shock.

“I miss her terribly,” she said. “It never occurred to me that she wouldn’t be there. I still need her.”