Sr. Martha Napior, OP, died at the Dominican Life Center in Adrian, MI, on August 1, 2026. She was eighty-seven years old and in her seventieth year of religious profession.
Martha Camilla Ann Napiorkowski (the family name was shortened later on ) was born on July 27, 1939, to Dominic and Stella (Popielarski) Napior. Dominic came to the U.S. from Poland in 1912, while Stella (a name Americanized from Stanislava, her birth name) was born in Pennsylvania.
Eventually, Dominic and Stella both ended up in Hamtramck, Michigan, a small city within Detroit that, at the time, was almost entirely Polish. The couple was married in 1922 at St. Florian Church in Hamtramck and went on to have five children in all: Edward, Arthur, Loretta, Marcella, and Martha. Marcella died in 1938 at just nine months of age. Dominic was employed at one of the area’s automobile factories, while Stella supervised the home front.
Martha attended nearby St. Augustine School in Detroit for the elementary grades and the first two years of high school. The school was staffed by Adrian Dominican Sisters, and from about age 12, she knew she wanted to enter the Congregation. With her parents’ consent, after completing her sophomore year of high school in June 1955, she came to Adrian to enter the postulancy. She was not quite sixteen years old at the time.
She was received as a novice in December 1955 with the religious name Sr. John Estelle, John being her father’s middle name and Estelle being a variation of Stella. The next June, halfway through her canonical novitiate year, she completed her high school education at St. Joseph Academy.
After professing her vows in December 1956, she remained in Adrian until the start of the 1956-1957 school year, when she began her studies at Siena Heights College (later University). She completed her bachelor’s degree in history from Siena Heights in 1964, followed in 1972 by a Master of Education degree in reading, also from Siena Heights.
She began her education ministry in Chicago, teaching at St. Kevin School (1957-1961), St. Kilian School (1961-1963) and St. Nicholas of Tolentine School (1963-1965). Next came three years (1965-1968) at St. Joseph School in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, followed by four years (1968-1972) back in Chicago at St. Columbanus School.
At that point, desiring to move away from teaching, she became a pastoral minister, a role that over the next four years took her to St. Catherine Parish, Phoenix, Arizona; Blessed Sacrament Parish, Tolleson, Arizona; and St. Francis Xavier Parish, Windom, Minnesota.
Her happiest time in ministry was the six years (1976-1982) she served the Potawatomi Nation as a pastoral minister on the Hannahville Reservation in Harris, Michigan. She lived in a trailer with a Sister from another religious congregation and traveled the roads of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula on a motorcycle.
“In her role as a pastoral minister and religious educator, Martha became very aware that … it was difficult for the people of the reservation to advocate for education, healthcare, and obtaining food,” Sr. Patricia Leonard, Holy Rosary Chapter Prioress, said in her eulogy at Sr. Martha’s wake.
Sr. Martha left the U.P. in 1982 for the state’s capital, Lansing, where she worked for almost a year as a sales clerk at one of the area’s Quality Dairy stores and then for a few months as a bookkeeper and secretary for an asphalt and excavating business in nearby Williamston.
From 1984 to 1998, she taught at Holy Cross School in Lansing, first as a classroom teacher and then, in her last year there, as the religious education teacher, responsible not only for working with the students but also for planning weekly liturgies. She also became active in the local community, joining a group called Project Lakewell that focused on the history and welfare of the Great Lakes and Michigan’s rivers, as well as her neighborhood association, Neighbors United in Action.
After her ministry at Holy Cross School ended, she served for almost a year as director of religious education at Lansing’s St. Therese Parish. She then returned to the classroom for her final years in active ministry, teaching special education students at George Crockett Academy in Detroit in 1999-2000 and then spending four years at Old Redford Academy, also in Detroit.
In both those Detroit schools, she worked with disadvantaged students, which gave her a real perspective on the issues those children faced. “I wish I had a magic wand to rid Detroit of its humongous problems,” she wrote in her 2001-2002 annals.
She commuted to Detroit each day from her residence in Harrison Township, northeast of the city, where she had moved to be closer to her sister Loretta. After leaving Old Redford Academy in 2004, she continued to live in Harrison Township until 2015, when her health necessitated that she return to Adrian to reside at the Dominican Life Center.
Sr. Martha was preceded in death by her parents, brothers Edward and Arthur, and her sisters Marcella Napiorkowski (Napior) and Loretta Jasniak. She is survived by loving family and her Adrian Dominican Sisters.
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