Sister Cornelia (Lea) Cozzini SNDdeN
January 5, 1938 – July 1, 2026
Funeral Mass Livestream can be accessed here.
“Catholic education is the greatest work on earth!”
St. Julie Billiart, Foundress of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur
Cornelia Rachel Cozzini was born in Chicago on January 5, 1938, to Cornelio Cozzini and Erlinda Maganzini Cozzini, both natives of Italy. She had two older sisters, Lucille Wozny and Erminia Bosler, and a younger sister, Rita Rattin. Because her father wanted a namesake, and there were no boys in the family, she was named Cornelia and affectionally called Lea. She was baptized at St. Callistus Church in Chicago.
Lea’s father, her family, their faith and her teachers, especially the Sisters, significantly influenced her. Lea always admired her father who had a knife grinding business. In the summer, as a young person, she happily traveled with him to various businesses to sharpen their knives. This experience sharpened her appreciation for hard work and good customer relations and gave her an awareness of the many ethnic groups and their cultures in neighborhoods throughout Chicago.
Being a close Italian American family, religion and prayer were important to Lea’s parents and relatives. Prayer was a priority before any other activity. They always attended Sunday Mass as a family, after which, being Italian, they would make wine at home. Later, as a teacher, Lea encouraged her students to have a conversation with God every day. She told them, “God gave you many gifts, but ONLY you can do the work that God has assigned to you. Never to go to bed without thanking God for your day and asking God to help you see what it is for you to do.”
The seeds of an educator were planted early in Lea’s heart. She loved the Sisters of St. Joseph at St. Viator Elementary School, especially for their patience in helping the students learn and taking time to make sure they understood clearly. Later Lea’s students described her with these same words.
When Lea met the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur at Notre Dame High School in Chicago, she immediately felt a family spirit of welcoming, love and acceptance of the students. She was inspired to become an SNDdeN and a teacher because of the teachers, especially the Sisters. She appreciated how the Sisters spent time with the high school girls after school, whether listening to the girls’ chatter or to their personal or academic problems. Lea was so impressed with the sisters’ outreach that she became involved with their summer camps. Working with children who did not have a rich family life, as she did, made a lasting impression on her. She learned that it does not make any difference what your family background is. You can become a special person if someone listens to you and treats you with respect.
After graduating from Notre Dame High School in 1955, Lea entered the SNDdeNs in Cincinnati, Ohio, on September 8, 1955. She professed First Vows on March 12, 1958, after which she began a 55-year ministry of teaching elementary school students. During the summers and on weekends, Lea completed a Bachelor of Science in Education at Our Lady of Cincinnati College, Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1968.
After teaching 19 years in elementary schools in Ohio and Illinois, Lea participated in ARC, an international renewal program for women religious, held at the Generalate of the SNDdeNs in Rome, Italy. The program included pilgrimages to the Holy Land and to places sacred to the Sisters’ history in France and Belgium. After the program concluded, Lea’s mother joined her for a trip to visit their relatives in Italy – an experience about which Lea often spoke.
After her sabbatical, Lea taught at St. Peter Canisius School for an additional year, completed her Master of Education Degree in Curriculum/Supervision at DePaul University, Chicago in 1988, and then taught at St. Robert Bellarmine School for 30 years.
Lea was engaged in an array of parish and other volunteer activities, such as leader of song, member of the parish choir, member of the Bereavement Committee, preparing students to be lectors at the Children’s Masses, and leading the weekly novena at St. Robert Bellarmine Parish for 21 years.
For nine years, Lea invited St. Robert Bellarmine students to learn about and support the SNDdeN’s “Clean Water for Life Project,” which provides clean water for children in Notre Dame school in Africa. Lea also worked alongside volunteers in the Live the Good program at various sites in Chicago. Loving to sing and entertain, she often helped plan and
participate in community celebrations including those honoring the Sister Jubilarians.
Moving toward fewer responsibilities, Lea and two other SNDdeNs spent the month of September 2016 at Berakah, a retreat center in Pittsfield, New Hampshire, where they participated in the program, Retirement for Mission – Journey into Deeper Love. Lea found this a deeply enriching and transformative experience, providing time to reflect on life as transition and change and realizing that continuing to grow is a choice.
In 2017, Lea, Ann Fanella and Mary Lou Stoffel, the remaining Sisters at St. Robert Bellarmine Parish, told the pastor that the parish should not be expected to keep open the convent for them. So, the Sisters spent the year closing the convent which had been home to over 95 SNDdeNs over 87 years. When the task was completed, Lea and Ann Fanella joined Mary Lou Stoffel at Mount Notre Dame in Cincinnati to be of service to the Sisters living there.
As Lea’s health declined, she moved to skilled care, continuing her ministry of prayer and presence. A wholehearted participant in activities, she was frequently seen being present to the older Sisters.
Lea loved the Sisters, her family and her former students, and they loved her. Over the two weeks before she died, 11 family members came from Chicago to visit her. A former student at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart School in Cincinnati flew from out of town to visit Lea. She whispered in Lea’s ear, “I am here to thank you on behalf of all the students whom you have taught.”
St. Julie Billiart, foundress of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, often told the Sisters, “Teach your students what they need to know for life.” Just imagine the number of minds and hearts that Lea touched. Now many of them are introducing her to her eternal dwelling place.
As we Sisters, family, friends and MND staff gather, we thank God for the gift of Lea. With God we say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Receive the award planned for you from all eternity.” May you rest in peace in the arms of our loving God.
“Those who instruct others to justice will shine like the stars forever.” Daniel 12:3
Rita Sturwold SNDdeN
July 8, 2026.