14 Facts About Thomas Welder

Thomas Welder began working at the Benedictine-sponsored Mary College in 1963 and served as its president from 1978 to 2009.

Thomas Welder received North Dakota's highest honor, the Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award, in 2004.

Diane Marie Thomas Welder was born on April 27,1940, in Linton, North Dakota, to Mary Ann and Sebastian Thomas Welder.

Thomas Welder's father died of a kidney condition in 1951; her mother became a Benedictine sister in 1968, after raising Welder and her siblings.

Thomas Welder attended Cathedral Elementary School and St Mary's Central High School, Bismarck, North Dakota, graduating in 1958.

Thomas Welder studied at the College of St Benedict in Minnesota, where she discerned her vocation to religious life.

Thomas Welder returned to Bismarck to enter the community of Benedictine nuns at Annunciation Monastery.

The Benedictines founded Mary College in 1959; Thomas Welder was a member of their first freshman class.

Thomas Welder was given the religious name "Sister Thomas" when she entered the novitiate.

Thomas Welder made a religious profession in 1961 and a perpetual monastic profession in 1964.

Thomas Welder completed a bachelor's degree at the College of St Scholastica in 1963 and received a master's degree in music from Northwestern University in 1968.

Thomas Welder's portrait is displayed in the North Dakota State Capitol.

Thomas Welder had polycystic kidney disease; she received two transplants, in 2001 and in 2011.

Thomas Welder died in Bismarck, North Dakota, on June 22,2020, after having been diagnosed with kidney cancer.