Carol Sue Daniel was born in Tiffin, Ohio in the summer of 1944. She was a four-year old child when the polio epidemic of 1948 occurred, and she contracted bulbar polio during the epidemic. While it was a mild case and left her without long-term problems, some of her first memories relate to the hospitalization that accompanied the illness. She remembers the large room that she shared with other children and that her parents were not allowed to enter the room. Later in her life, she became aware that she had been spared the serious disabilities that befell many polio victims; she remains grateful to God to this day for the outcome and connects that gratitude with a sense that God had a plan for her.
 

Family and grade school activities nourished God's special plan until Carol Sue entered high school. Carol Sue attended parochial school where she was taught by sisters; her family often made pilgrimages to religious shrines in the area. But while in high school, Carol Sue's desire to enter religious life waned, and she planned to attend college to study medical technology. But during a high school retreat, God intervened reminding Carol Sue of another plan, and she once again began to consider religious life seriously. She read the Sacred Heart Messenger and copied down two addresses of religious congregations whose ministry seemed to focus on health care. She dismissed one later because they were missionaries. Soon Carol Sue visited the Motherhouse of the Hospital Sisters of St. Francis in Springfield, Illinois. She entered the community in September 1962.

 

After spending three years in initial formation, Sister Carol Sue attended Marillac College in St. Louis where she obtained degrees in biology and chemistry. Following one year of post-graduate studies at St. Vincent Hospital in Green Bay, Wisconsin, she became a medical technologist. She served in the laboratory at St. Mary's Hospital in Streator, Illinois and later in both laboratory and radiology areas at the Community's mission in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. After returning from Taiwan, Sister Carol Sue engaged in catechetical work with the Native American people in Arizona.

 

Following education in clinical pastoral ministry, Sister Carol Sue has served as a chaplain in several hospitals. Presently, she ministers at St. John's Hospital, Springfield, Illinois in the Hospice Home Health Department. She relates that it is a "sacred privilege to companion people and to witness God's presence, grace and providential care in their lives in the difficult times as well as the joyful ones."