Sister Mary Aquinas Messer, O.P., a member of the Sisters of St. Dominic, Amityville, for 79 years, died Dec. 5. She was 98.
Born in Brooklyn, she grew up in Maryland and entered the congregation from Ascension parish, Halethorpe, Md., in 1933. She received the habit with her religious name the following year. On Aug. 26, 1935, she pronounced her religious vows.
She taught at 14 Holy Martyrs, Bushwick, 1935-37; St. Pancras, Glendale, 1937-42; Our Lady of Sorrows, Lower East Side, 1942-45; B.V.M. Help of Christians, Woodside, 1945-48; Dominican Commercial H.S., Jamaica, 1948-68.
In the evenings, she volunteered at the ESL Program at St. Pius V, Jamaica. She served at St. Agnes H.S., Rockville Centre, 1968-71, and then returned to Dominican Commercial, 1971-95, where she began her career as a guidance counselor. 
She retired from the formal school setting in 1995 but continued as a volunteer through 1998.  Failing health necessitated a move to Carlin Hall in 2004.
She is survived by relatives in Maryland as well as her nephew, Father Terry Messer of Newark, N.J. 
A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated in St. Albert Chapel, Amityville, Dec. 7. Interment in the Sisters’ Cemetery followed.