Sister Jessica Zwarra, OFM, Dent '58 (left), and Sister Florita Schneider, OFM, Dent '58 (right).
Photo credit: fscc-calledtobe.org
Marquette dentists have cared for patients in settings around the world, but one clinic locale you might not imagine is in the heart of a Franciscan Sisters’ Convent — with two nuns as its dentists!
Those compassionate dentists were Sister Jessica Zwarra, OFM, Dent ’58, and Sister Florita Schneider, OFM, Dent ’58, who ran the clinic at the Manitowoc, Wisc. convent for nearly 50 years. The sisters joined Marquette’s School of Dentistry shortly after professing their final vows in the early 1950s.
The sisters with Dean John Goggins, receiving the Distinguished Alumnae in Denistry awards in 1991.
Sister Jessica, who passed away in May 2025, often reflected on what she called her “special apostolate” to serve others as a dentist, sharing how dental visits could often feel frightening or expensive to patients. Her joy came in alleviating their pain and fear, providing important dental services for the poor and restoring her patients’ smiles “to help them enjoy God’s beautiful earth.”
“Sister loved pro bono dentistry,” says Joan Piatt, Bus ’92, whose mother was Sister Jessica’s cousin and best friend. She would say,
“I get to put a smile on people’s faces every day."
After joining the Franciscans in 1951, Sister Jessica thought she’d likely become a teacher or a nurse. It was her Mother Superior’s creative idea to continue the convent’s dental care after their former dentist retired that sent her and Sister Florita to Marquette’s School of Dentistry.
In those days, Marquette dental classes typically had one female student, but as nuns, Sisters Jessica and Florita didn’t count in their official class total.
“Sister Jessica would say, ‘Can you believe that?’” Piatt recalls. But it didn’t diminish her accomplishment as one of the early women to graduate from Marquette’s School of Dentistry.
“This was certainly something brand new,” remembers Sister Florita of their days on campus. “We thought we would do the best we could. It was great to have a companion who was in the same situation. We could work together and support each other. I can’t imagine going through dental school without someone as supportive as Sister Jessica.”
Marquette was a great learning environment, and the sisters appreciated School of Dentistry Chaplain Rev. William McEvoy, S.J., fondly known to students as “Father Mac.”
Photo credit: fscc-calledtobe.org
After graduating at age 25, Sisters Jessica and Florita reopened the convent’s clinic and began a ministry that would become much of their life’s work, caring for their fellow sisters and those in the community beyond the convent. The “drilling nuns” often traveled to nursing homes, clinics and hospitals to deliver dental care and welcomed increasing numbers of local refugee children for dental health check-ups.
“We did not have any dental assistants or hygienists, so we helped each other and did our own laboratory work. One person’s strength was helpful to the other,” Sister Florita says.
“We appreciated that we could work with patients one-on-one and encountered many different people.”
Their trailblazing persistence and compassion made a difference for countless patients. A true reflection of cura personalis and the Marquette spirit.