Sister Angela Cools-Lartigue died March 18, 2016, at Erie County Medical Center in Buffalo. She was 86 years of age.

The former Marie Emily Angela Cools-Lartigue was born Nov. 5, 1929, in Roseau, Dominica, West Indies, to Alexander and Alexandra Sybil Potter Cools-Lartigue of Kingston, Jamaica. After she graduated from high school in St. George, Granada in 1944, she worked in banking, and later studied nursing at the Hospital of St. John and St. Elizabeth in London, England. She became a licensed midwife at Kingsbury Maternity Hospital and an orthopedic nurse at St. Vincent's Orthopedic Hospital, both in England.

After meeting Franciscan sisters in Jamaica, she joined the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany at St. Elizabeth Motherhouse in 1961 and professed final religious vows in 1969. She attended St. Elizabeth Teaching School, now St. Bonaventure University, St. Louis University in Missouri and St. Petersburg Junior College in Florida. She received a BSN with a minor in theology in 1970.

Sister Angela served for 30 years as a nurse at several congregational hospitals in Florida. For one year, she served in Mississippi as a parish minister. She also served the government helping Choctaw Indian populations living there. For five years, she served in Lake Providence, La., helping women and children living in an impoverished area. She assisted with community service programs and helped the area's diverse population of different races and backgrounds to work together toward unity.

In 2000, Sister Angela retired and lived at convents in Kingston, St. Petersburg and Tampa before returning to the Diocese of Buffalo at St. Elizabeth Motherhouse in 2009.

Sister Angela is survived by two sisters, Sister Celia Cools-Lartigue, OSF, and Rosamund Rutland, and her siblings' families.

A funeral Mass was held in the chapel of St. Elizabeth Motherhouse in Allegany, with burial in St. Bonaventure Cemetery.