Sharing His Birthday Nun Celebrates 100th Birthday With A Mass, Presents And Festive Meal

While Christians around the world commemorated the birth of Jesus, Sister Basil Gebert celebrated the 100th anniversary of her own birthday.

“I am grateful to God to be born on the day Jesus was born,” Sister Basil said in an interview last week.

With a grin and a tinkle of laughter, she added, “I never thought he’d keep me around this long. No, I never thought I’d ever be a hundred. Goodness, no.”

She was born in Hoquiam, the same year that Marconi invented the radio, King Gillette the safety razor and Kellogg’s came up with flakes.

Her birth name is Christina.

Today, she lives at the stately Sacred Heart Villa Convent in Laurelhurst.

Sister Basil’s birthday plans included Mass at the convent’s tiny chapel with 11 other retired sisters, opening some presents and a festive noontime meal.

“She’s a warm, wonderful, gentle and beautiful person,” said Katie Lambertz, who manages the convent.

Or as Sister Basil’s niece, Aileen Long of Hoquiam, put it: “She is a precious jewel.”

Sister Basil’s memories go way back to the early years of her 115-year-old religious order. She remembers a conversation in 1910 with Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, the founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart and America’s first saint.

Mother Cabrini wanted to open a mission in Alaska, recalled Sister Basil.

“But she told me the Indian chief there in one of the villages would chew his food then pass it on to the family to eat, and she said, ‘Oh, I don’t think the sisters will be ready for that.’ “

In 1938, Sister Basil traveled to Rome by ocean liner to witness the beatification of Mother Cabrini, who died in 1917. Mother Cabrini’s death was the saddest day of her life, Sister Basil said. While in Rome, she met Pope Pius XI.

Decades later, in 1984, she had an audience with Pope John Paul II.

Sister Basil spent her early years in Hoquiam, the second of four daughters. When she was 8, her mother died, and her father, unable to take care of the children because of his long hours at a mill, took them to a Catholic boarding school on Beacon Hill.

There, she encountered Mother Cabrini and her sisters. She was swept away by Mother Cabrini’s devotion to God.

She decided to enter the religious order in January 1913. She was not yet 18. As was the custom then, she was given the name Sister Basil by the superior general.

For almost 83 years, Sister Basil was a teacher and hospital administrator. She taught school in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Scranton, Pa.

Today, she is the oldest nun among the 650 Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart in the United States.