Sr. Suzanne Simo, SSS

Sister Suzanne (Margaret Elizabeth) Simo, SSS, age of 101passed away on July 24, 2025. Daughter of the late John and Bertha (nee Farkas), sister of the late Bertha (Stylon), Julie (Fredley), John Jr, Charles, Anthony, Ernest, and Rose. She will be greatly missed by the Sisters of Social Service and her nieces, nephews, grandnieces, grandnephews and friends. Friends may call Thursday August 7th from 10:00 -10:30 am at the Sisters of Saint Joseph Clarence Residence, 4975 Strickler Rd., Clarence, where a Mass of Christian Burial will be held following the visitation at 10:30am. Sister Suzanne was working at Centro Hispano of the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami. Online condolences may be shared at denglerrobertspernafuneral.com

Margaret Simo (Suzanne was her religious name) was born in Lorain, OH on January 11, 1924. Her parents John and Bertha (nee Farkas) Simo came from Transylvania (Romania) to the US. They raised eight children; of them little Margaret and her twin brother Ernest were the youngest.

She attended schools in her hometown, and after graduation worked in a small factory of General Industries in Elyria, OH.

Her adult life started as with many of the young women in that time. Some young men dated her, but these relationships did not get serious because of an uneasiness in her heart. Therefore, she started a long process of discernment to find God’s will for her. In the 1940’s discernment was not a common practice but certainly the Holy Spirit guided her, nonetheless.

Young Margaret developed a deep prayer life and was incessantly searching for the state of life to which God was calling her. She wished to know whether it was the married, religious, or single life.

One Sunday, while helping in her mother’s kitchen, an inner voice addressed her: “give yourself entirely to me”. She recognized God’s answer to her quest; God called her to religious life.

However, the second question was also important: to which congregation? She continued her discernment for months and even visited some convents, but her heart remained restless. Then in October before the Rosary devotion in church she caught sight of an unusual looking nun. She was Sister Columba Adam, a Sister of Social Service who was making a collection in Lorain. In the person of Sister Columba, she met the SSS and felt an attraction to the community.

After a short visit to Buffalo in early January, she was sure that God called her to the SSS. On April 28, 1950, she started her new life with the SSS on Tifft Street. She spent her novitiate in Hamilton, Canada and took her first vows on Pentecost 1953. She received the religious name Suzanne. Her first motto was “Why did I come” which for her was not a question but rather a reminder of the guidance of the Holy Spirit she had experienced during her spiritual journey. She took her final vows in 1963 and chose a new motto “Be merciful to me O Lord”.

The last time she changed her motto was at her silver jubilee in 1978: “Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me, melt me, mold me, fill me, use me” (taken from a popular song to the Holy Spirit)

Sister Suzanne ministered in various Buffalo area parishes, first doing census work, then as a catechist at St. Anthony parish in Lackawanna until 1971.

Meanwhile she earned her BS at Canisius College in Social Sciences in 1965. In 1969 she became involved in the Spanish Apostolate at the Immaculate Conception Church in Buffalo. In 1973 she was assigned to the Spanish Apostolate in Miami where several of our Sisters of Cuban background, were already ministering.

In Miami she was the administrator of the Centro Hispano, guided the Ladies Auxiliary group and was responsible for securing all the resources necessary for the institution’s function. She retired from this work in 2001 but continued to volunteer at the Centro, gradually decreasing her involvement, as her age advanced.

Sadly, by then all the other sisters in the local community in Miami were deceased, so Sister Suzanne remained the only SSS in the area. In 2013 she received an Outstanding Service Award for “40 years of Dedicated Service and Commitment to the Children and Families of Centro Hispanico Catolico.”

In the SSS community Sister Suzanne was General Secretary between 1969 and 1975, later General Treasurer between 1975 and 1979. She participated in the Chapters of 1979 (in Sion, Switzerland) and 1991 (in Budapest, Hungary).

In 2015 Sister Rochelle Mitchell, the General Director of SSS of Los Angeles at the time, invited her to their Villa in Encino, California to live with the Sisters’ community there. She moved with great joy and found a home among the SSS of LA. She spent the last years of her life there. She participated in community events while maintaining contact with the group of sisters in Buffalo. These carefree years of her retirement brought out talents we never knew about, among them her musical talents. She joined a flute circle that met regularly at the Sisters’ retreat center and her harmonica music was a colorful addition to the group.

Her 70th anniversary of vows was celebrated in 2023, in the centenary year of the foundation of the SSS. The following year she celebrated her 100th birthday with the Sisters and friends. Her 101st birthday party happened at Thousand Oaks (Sisters of Notre Dame) because of the evacuation due to the Palisades fire.

Her health started to rapidly decline in May, and after having received the sacraments of the sick, under Hospice care, she returned to God on July 24, 2025.