LIHUE — To her family, Sister Florence Remata was “the flying nun.”
“She traveled all over the world as a part of her ministry,” Remata’s sister Mildred Olores said with a laugh. “Every time she’d call, she would be going somewhere.”
But no matter where her work in the Roman Catholic Church took her, the Westside native never forgot where she came from.
“She always made the time to come and visit the family even if she wasn’t on Kauai and was somewhere else,” Olores said. “She always took the time to come home and visit the islands. Every time she came around, she always had that laugh which made everyone chuckle on the side. She made everyone feel comfortable and it was just nice to have her around — I’m going to miss that.”
Remata, a regional minister for the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities, former educator at Immaculate Conception Church, and longtime sister of St. Francis, died on Aug. 3 at The Queen’s Medical Center on Oahu after a brief illness. She was 75.
”We come from a very, very religious family, so she’s the one who uplifted us and kept our family together even after my grandma passed on, so it’s a really big loss for us, but we accepted it,” Remata’s niece Debbie Olores said on Friday. “She was always positive in everything. To me, she’s like a saint.”
Remata, the sixth of 12 children born to Crisanto and Vicenta Omakanim Remata, was raised in what is now Pakala. She attended St. Theresa School in Kekaha and was a part of its first graduating class. She then attended Saint Francis Convent School on Oahu, and graduated in 1956 before joining the Sisters of Saint Francis.
”When my grandma and grandpa gave Sister Florence to the Lord, that became her family and we became her secondary family,” Olores said.
Remata also graduated from Chaminade College in Honolulu and Santa Clara University in California.
Remata taught at St. Peter School in Riverside, New Jersey; St. Joseph School on the Big Island, where she also was vice principal; and Our Lady of Good Counsel School on Oahu. She also served as the director of religious education at Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish Pearl City and at St. Patrick in Chittenango, New York.
She later returned to Kauai in 1995 to care for her mother.
”They had her stay here on the island of Kauai because my grandma, who is her mom, was still alive, but they didn’t know that my grandma would live to be 103, so that made her stay on Kauai for 17 years,” Olores said.
During that time, Remata served as the director of religious education and pastoral associate at Immaculate Conception Church in Lihue.
It was there that Deacon Bill Farias met Remata in 2001 while he was training to become a deacon.
”She was a holy person, but she was also really jolly and down to earth,” Farias said. “She enjoyed having fun and lifted everybody’s spirits. She visited people when they were in the hospital and those who were homebound — she was always a welcome face for them.”
A service for Remata will be held today at the St. Theresa Church in Kekaha. Visitation will be from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. Mass will be at 10 a.m. A second service will also be held on Saturday, Aug. 23 at Immaculate Conception Church in Lihue at 10 a.m.
