Sister M. Reparata Clarke was a member of the Order of Oblate Sisters of Providence, located in Arbutus. Founded in Baltimore in the 1800s, the Oblate Sisters is the oldest order of religious women of color.
Sister Reparata was the archivist there in the 1990s. She embraced emerging technology that would digitize on compact disc historical photos, artifacts and records. According to sources at the time, Pope Paul VI urged Catholics in a 1976 letter to collect and preserve historical documents. The project at the Oblate Sisters of Providence was supported in part by a $500 grant from the Baltimore County Historical Trust.
The Oblate Sisters were co-founded in 1829 by Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange (c. 1784 – 1882) and Rev. James Joubert (1777 – 1843). Important artifacts owned by the Order include Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange’s prayer book, cane, religious pictures and saints’ relics. Other items for cataloguing and preservation were eyeglasses, a tobacco pouch and a watch fob that belonged to Rev. Joubert. Both Lange and Joubert were important influences in Baltimore’s Catholic community. Mother Lange spent her life serving and educating Black children in and co-founded St. Frances Academy with Father Joubert. He, in turn, taught at St. Mary’s Seminary.
Sister Reparata Clarke died in October 2007.