Sister Mary James Schneberger was an old-fashioned nun, said her niece, Evelyn Moses.

One of the Sisters of St. Francis, she wore the habit until the day she died. She liked bingo. And as a first- and second-grade teacher at several area Catholic primary schools, she was a strict disciplinarian.

"My mother always joked that she wouldn't want to be in her class," said Mrs. Moses.

Sister Mary James' compassion was the quiet kind, said Mrs. Moses. Quick to befriend the poor, she was constantly making gifts for people, collecting things or crocheting items to sell on behalf of the local mission -- never letting on about what she was doing.

"She did a lot of stuff that people didn't see," said her niece.

Sister Mary James taught at several Catholic schools in the Pittsburgh and the Altoona-Johnstown dioceses, and worked for more than 25 years as the mail room clerk at St. Francis Medical Center in Lawrenceville. She died Friday at age 90.

Sister Mary James was born in Cleveland in 1916, and moved with her parents and four sisters to Wisconsin as a toddler.

She would endure more than her share of personal tragedy. One of her sisters died as an infant in the 1918 flu epidemic. Her mother died when she was 7 years old, and her father, having no means to take care of the girls, put them in St. Joseph's orphanage in Superior, Wis. He died two years later.

In the orphanage, one of Sister Mary James' other sisters died. Another sister would later drown at age 27, said Mrs. Moses.

"There was only her and my mother left," she said.

At some point, the girls were transferred to the St. Joseph's German Orphan Asylum in Troy Hill. At both orphanages, Sister Mary James was made to work and take care of the babies, said Mrs. Moses. As a result, she had only a sixth-grade education.

On her own at age 18, she went to work as a housekeeper, cook and nanny on Hawthorne Road in Millvale, right across the street from the Sisters of St. Francis convent, Mrs. Moses said.

"She was a little bit older when she joined, but she blended in quite well," said Sister Elise Renk. "She always wanted to be a sister."

Sister Elise described Sister Mary James as quiet, dignified and giving. She was a devoted Pirates fan, and enjoyed tending to her niece's garden.

"She'd go to work even when she wasn't feeling well," said Sister Elise. "We used to tease her, because she had this cart [at the medical center] that she used to wheel in the mail. She decorated it, sometimes for each season. She was just so cheerful."

Visitation will be from 2 to 8 p.m. today and from 2 to 5 p.m. tomorrow at the Mount Alvernia Motherhouse Chapel, 146 Hawthorne Road, Millvale. A Mass will be celebrated at 5 p.m. tomorrow at the motherhouse. Burial will be in the motherhouse cemetery.