This website is best viewed in a browser that supports web standards.
Skip to content or, if you would rather, Skip to navigation.
May 24, 2023Gower, Mo. | By: Jeremy Werner
GOWER, Mo. - Hundreds are descending on a small town in northwest Missouri.
The Benedictine Sisters of Mary, Queen of Apostles, in Gower, is being flooded with visits and calls after word spread about what happened when they recently exhumed the remains of their founder.
Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster died in 2019, and sisters recently had to relocate her body. But instead of finding bones in the coffin, they found her well-preserved body.
Sister Lancaster's body was not embalmed and her coffin had a crack in it, allowing the elements inside.
Catholic tradition holds that the absence of decomposition is considered a sign of holiness and that the body provides witness to the truth of the resurrection.
Sister Lancaster will be displayed in the chapel until May 29. After that, she will be encased in glass.